James Sultana, a Bahrija resident, wrote to The Malta Independent on Sunday to outline the area’s many shortcomings, starting with the state of the roads. The main road, completed about a year ago, has already undergone extensive repairs and is yet again developing problems in those same areas where it had been fixed. General accessibility is another problem, with public transport limited to just a couple of route buses per day.

Power supply is at best inconsistent: there are some areas in which the voltage is barely enough to make basic appliances work. More disturbing, however, is the lack of a functional sewage system, with residents having to rely on “infrequently emptied” cesspits instead.

Moreover, despite these deficiencies MEPA continues to approve building projects (including permits for 26 garages and 18 apartments) without ascertaining that such elementary infrastructural facilities as drainage are available.

Another area where Bahrija seems to be light years away from civilisation is television reception. Most of the year, residents are left with practically no reception at all. Maltese stations are virtually non-existent, and while certain Italian stations are available in winter (thunderstorms and lightning-strikes permitting), from April onwards the general reception is all but non-existent.

Meanwhile, Bahrija residents continue to be denied access to cable television. According to Mr Sultana, “Melita Cable gave us days, weeks, months and years of unkept promises, but never anything concrete.” Eventually, the company agreed to look into the possibility of providing a service to Bahrija residents, but returned with the excuse that “too few people live there to justify the investment” of laying cables and installing a repeater.

“They even had the cheek to tell us (my wife and I) that if we managed to find more people who want the service, they might consider it... as if we were Melita Cable salespersons!” added Mr Sultana.

Expectations of a decent service were raised when the monopoly was removed in 2003. Last year, a TV system over the phone lines, pioneered by Datastream, was on display at the Maltacom stand at the Trade Fair, Naxxar. Datastream representatives admitted that this system would not work 100 per cent at distances of over 6km from the nearest exchange. However, they were confident that after some tests these hurdles could be overcome.

“After a week of hope and expectations, the inevitable happened and Maltacom’s chairman was changed,” continued Mr Sultana. “From that day on the response was that everything is on hold, since the new chairman wanted to make a stock-take of the situation.”

Months later it transpired that the initial claims of a 6km range were somewhat off the mark. Upon making enquiries, Bahrija residents were told that Datastream was no longer considering test connections at a distance of more than 4km from an exchange, as they had problems in making the system work at distances of more than 3km... placing the new television system squarely out of reach for Bahrija residents.

“In 2004, with all this hype about how technologically advanced we are here in Malta, the only way Bahrija residents can reach the same level as the rest of the country is by doing things which shouldn’t be done and by paying money to people who shouldn’t be getting it,” concluded Mr Sultana. “Why can’t we be offered the same services like all the other citizens of this country? Don’t we contribute via our tax payments to whatever subsidy/support these two companies got from the government just like anybody else?”