In the wake of the horrific incident in Valletta where teenagers were attacked and injured by a gang of youths, Prime Minister Robert Abela called upon parents to raise their children with the correct morals and values.

I find that a bit rich when the government has contributed to a state of affairs where wrongdoers and bullies are constantly rewarded and victims are abandoned to their fate with little hope of seeing any form of justice.

Take the situation in Valletta for starters. In the past years,  the capital has become a tawdry, noisy hang-out where competing establishments take up more public space, the cacophony keeps residents up at night and gangs of youths mill about taunting passers-by.

The relaxation of the regulations regarding the playing of music late at night was objected to by residents, to no avail. The encroachment onto public spaces? Too difficult to enforce due to a regulatory regime so fragmented that all authorities refuse to enter the fray.

The gangs of youths? They’ve been there for some time – intimidating and inconveniencing others but there are no signs of effective policing dispersing them. Complaints to the police have resulted in the usual desultory fobbing off.

Whether this is because the police are under-resourced or unmotivated, no one knows, but this scenario is repeated across the board every time anyone reports crime, law-breaking, harassment, nuisance, inconvenience and lack of adherence to regulations. 

Victims are given short shrift and are deliberately ignored by the authorities. Is this the fault of parents failing to instil good values in their children? No. It is the fault of those government ministers who prefer to splurge taxpayers’ money on inflated direct orders to cronies and asinine projects instead of beefing up our enforcement systems.

It is the fault of those government ministers who are so quick to pass a thicket of legislation setting up more useless state entities so they or their chosen ones can run personal fiefdoms, instead of passing laws which will make enforcement easier.

I watched the interview with Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia with equal measures of amusement and irritation- Claire Bonello

It is the fault of those government ministers who shrug off clear evidence of corruption which engulfs the nation, instead of setting the tone and showing that corrupt and unethical practices are not tolerated.

The current breakdown and mayhem is not the fault of parents but the infants in government. The unfortunate thing about it is that we are reaping what they have sown.

An endless saga of roadworks and buses stuck in traffic

I watched the interview with Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia with equal measures of amusement and irritation. Questioned about the fact that our streets are still car-choked and that people still refuse to use the bus service because it is unreliable, Farrugia came up with the usual platitudes.

He said there is no magic bullet, that it required a culture change and that people driving their private vehicles were not part of the solution  but part of the problem. So far, so unremarkable.

Then he admitted the blindingly obvious – that even if there were a million buses on the roads, with great, practical routes and even if the service was free, people still wouldn’t use the service because buses would get caught up in traffic and be as slow and as unreliable as they are at present. And then he suggested reserved bus lanes with the aplomb of someone who has come up with a revolutionary idea.

The only thing is that bus lanes or strategic bus corridors are hardly a new concept. They were introduced in the local plans a good 17 years ago. Quoting from one such local plan, which states: “the local plan introduces the concept of strategic bus corridors.

“Along these corridors measures will be introduced to improve the speed, reliability and convenience of bus services, together with land use policies intended to promote greater bus usage”.

Since then, not one single strategic bus corridor/bus lane has been put into place, with the result that buses are mired in traffic and commuters shun them. Instead, we get road-widening exercises which gobble up swathes of valuable agricultural land.

But then the costs for road-widening works can be overinflated for obvious reasons. The introduction of reserved bus corridors – on the other hand – requires enforcement – something which the Maltese authorities refuse to do.

So, we are doomed to an endless saga of roadworks, buses stuck in traffic and interviews with transport ministers bleating on about the need for a culture change – but not implementing practical measures to bring it about.