The never-ending saga of road repairs (1)

Last December, people wrote to this newspaper to complain about the botched up re-surfacing works on the Salina part of the Coast Road which created "a pleasure ride of sorts". On December 11, I e-mailed the minister concerned to bring the issue to his attention and he gave me the following prompt reply: "Action has already been taken against the contractor and the road should be re-surfaced again." On January 27, I again e-mailed the minister to remind him that no action has been taken and again he replied very promptly and copied me with a letter from architect Daniel Cordina, acting manager Domestic Road Construction and Maintenance Unit. The following is an extract from that letter: "The areas to be replaced from the visual inspections have been identified. I requested the test results so that in case the results of all the stretch fail we remove all not just the visually deficient areas."

It has now been well over three months since this botched-up re-surfacing work was completed and one wonders when the promised repairs to the re-surfaced areas are going to take place. If one is constantly allowed to get away with such poor workmanship no wonder our roads are in such a mess! Action in this instance would speak much louder than promised words.