Being the Christmas period and all that jazz, we should all join in the cheer and be grateful for our government and, especially our stars, our amazing ministers. They all do sterling work and without them we would be in deep sh**.
Two of these ministers have made glorious pronouncements recently. Both have been, miraculously, struck by something sublime. Maybe Santa came early to us and gave them the sweetest gift of announcing only wondrous things.
Miriam Dalli has launched a document outlining how to reduce our car usage. By 2030, she will, after consultation with some magi and marvellous magicians, decrease our car dependency by 41 per cent. Interesting how that figure – 41 not 40 because we plan perfectly here – was arrived at. There’s a whole document to wade through but I couldn’t be bothered to read it. I’ll stick to my Harry Potter series of fables.
Having said all this, one other figure was even more riveting. By 2030, adult participation in training will increase by 57.6 per cent every year. The devil who, it is rumoured, cares quite a bit about detail, would not have managed such mind-numbing exactitude.
What we did not manage a few decades ago, to become a sunny Switzerland in the Med, it seems we manage to emulate in our meticulous planning. We run the country like clockwork, exactly to Swiss perfection.
I sincerely hope and pray that Dalli will achieve all this and more. Just as I hope another cabinet star will achieve what he has recently promised.
A bit further back in time, just a few weeks before Dalli’s announcement, Aaron Farrugia also regaled us with a plan to beat all plans.
Farrugia had been challenged by bikers to use his bike as his only mode of transport for a whole week. So, he donned his helmet and bike gear and off he rode. He was obviously followed by others who filmed our intrepid Labour Party politician to show the world that Labour listens, Labour leads.
We run the country like clockwork, exactly to Swiss perfection
Farrugia does not just listen, he also acts. Lo and behold, a week after he went riding, he announced to us mortals a grand plan. He has promised us that he – from our money – is going to spend €35 million to give us all a proper cycle network.
I know these ministers of ours are, like Santa’s busy elves, very taken up. But did he actually need a week on his bike saddle to realise how awful, how dangerous, how preposterous our roads are for those brave enough to ride a bike?
Even if he is always totally engrossed in his plans, documents, speeches and other homework he looks at while in his chauffeured car, surely he knows how to read and can follow the news about what the bike world is like on this island?
If he never reads anything or understands much, he must have some minion who gives him a round-up of what the world outside his gilded car and office is like.
These plans beg so many questions that it makes it more and more obvious that he just came up with his idea and blurted it out. He definitely did not have enough time to work out a thorough plan or to consult the people who are experts in the field.
And if he realised how badly the previous minister had planned his roadworks, why not ask him why he failed so miserably? Or, more to the point, why doesn’t he ask for an inquiry into why so many road networks could have been planned better?
Perhaps he is afraid that, like everything this Labour star-studded government touches, besides being tainted with incompetence, the road projects also carry the stench of corruption.
Hopefully, all this pie-in-the-sky talk of how well we are going to change the way we live in Malta will translate into reality. We live in hope that we, the poor suffering people of Malta, won’t be taken for a few more rides.
vc@victorcalleja.com