Parliament on Wednesday approved the privatisation of the dockyard and Manoel Island ’yard after 40 years of operation and a €1 billion bill which the taxpayer has had to fork out.

Until it was amalgamated with Malta Drydocks in 2003, the shipyard had accumulated €400 million in losses. This means a loss of €70,000 every day or a loss of €2,500 for every Maltese citizen.

Anyone in their right mind would take a look around and say – and about time too. Having said that, it is a very easy statement to make once all has been done and dusted.

Let us not forget that the ’yards were made up of working men whose families depended on. The easiest thing would be to blame the workers alone. Of course, they must shoulder their share in the blame – everything happens for a reason.

But there were very serious shortcomings by the management and politicians over the 40-year period. If we are to go back in history and put everything in a nutshell, the ’yard never even got off the ground on the right footing. The Labour government of the time inherited a ’yard – which although provided excellent services – was always run at a loss. It was primarily used by the British military to repair ships, whatever the cost. Given that it was mostly used by the Armed Forces – money (or rather losses) were never an issue to the crown.

When the Labour government of the day inherited the ’yards, it inherited the ’yards’ same way of doing things, but at the same time providing stable employment for hundreds of people who might not have found employment elsewhere.

It made losses every year (apart from the two years where some progress was made), but it did keep people in work and the thinking was in tune with the socialist ways of the time.

In 1987 when the PN came into government, the ’yards were simply too hot to touch politically. The GWU was very strong and one could say that the backbone of the union was brought through the ’yard ranks.

But then we set off on the road to EU membership, and the unravelling of the ’yards began to gather pace. It is always easier in hindsight, but this was the time when the issue of the ’yards needed to be addressed. Although several attempts were made over the years to restructure the ’yards, nothing really worked.

The recent public accounts committee hearings gave some hard evidence of just how shockingly bad the professional management team had been with quotes seemingly being fired around without even costing a job properly.

And all in all, there never really seemed to be any real desire to tackle the ’yards problem. Minister after minister (and prime minister) would optimistically propose report drafting, task forces, new management and restructuring, and every time the plan would fall flat.

When one listens to the parliamentary debates and the evidence given at the PAC hearings, it becomes obvious that no one really had a clue of how to turn the enterprises round. In the event – it was a national failure, failure by successive governments of differing political schools, but failure nonetheless.

If the PN believes it can tell us that the ’yards should have been privatised many years ago – we say, yes, they should have, and no report or investigation was needed – the common man in the street could have told us so. And if Labour wants to tell us that workers were betrayed and taken advantage of – we disagree, it is each and every citizen that has paid their due taxes (and subsidised these huge losses) who have been taken for a ride. It’s over, time to move on. 40 years and €1 billion is just too much to take.