The government’s entrenched anti-Arriva stance inspires no faith or trust in either its motivation or its good will during negotiations. One is left with the feeling that the government is out to smash the system and replace it with something of its own choosing, and in retrospect it now appears that the Labour Party’s campaign against Arriva was not really designed to destroy Austin Gatt, who was useful collateral damage, but to bring down Arriva itself.
The Transport Minister’s many and varied comments and sarcastic remarks about the bus operator – wisecracks which do not sound at all as if they have been made in the spirit of good fun but that of ill will – have not been helpful in dispelling the notion that he wants Arriva out at all costs. The matter has now clearly reached some kind of stand-off, with the word being put about that the operator intends to pull out of Malta sooner rather than later because far too many obstacles are being deliberately placed in its path.
That Joe Mizzi has some kind of agenda – to drive Arriva out of Malta if not exactly to replace the operator with another one of the Labour government’s choosing (that agenda may belong to somebody else) – has been given further credence by his remarks about why three bendy-buses caught fire in rapid succession this year. Speaking on the Labour Party’s television station yesterday morning, which again was not quite the right forum to inspire faith and trust in his objectives, Mizzi said that the “technical reports” of investigations into the fires had “ruled out arson”. He said that he is waiting permission from the Attorney-General, who appears to have become some kind of crutch for this government as he is referred to repeatedly in all sorts of ways which make him sound like a government tool, which he is not, to publish parts of these reports. But Arriva immediately pointed out that the Transport Minister was disingenuous when he said this (that is my word, not theirs) because the report he was talking about was that of a magisterial enquiry into one fire on one bus and did not deal with the several subsequent fires on other buses. Transport Malta’s own investigators, the bus operator said, had not ruled out arson at all. Nor had an independent enquiry commissioned by the Transport Minister himself. The one report said that “the possibility of intentional arson cannot be ruled out” (arson is always intentional; that’s what makes it arson) while the other report said: “One cannot totally ignore the possibility that the vehicle took fire from something external”. Then there was another report, by an independent fire investigator commissioned by Arriva, which gave “arson or sabotage” as a possible cause of the fires.
Yet despite this, the Transport Minister said on the Labour Party’s television station that the bendy-buses will not return to the roads not just because of traffic congestion (how many of us have noticed any difference since they’ve gone?) but “for reasons of safety”. Arriva was having none of this yesterday, and released a statement saying that “these vehicles are safe to return to service and, while there may be a desire by the government to remove them in relation to traffic management, they remain contractually compliant vehicles”.
It is difficult to avoid reaching the conclusion that the government is negotiating in bad faith and has been doing so from right at the outset. There seems to be no way that Arriva is going to be allowed to survive this, and given the open secret that it will pull out because it is conscious of the government’s bad faith, we have to wonder what all this was for. Rather than seeking to solve the problems and iron out the wrinkles, a mess has been deliberately made that cannot be solved, which seems to have been the actual aim. Of course, we now have to ask ourselves what comes next. Undoing the bus service to redo it all again in a different fashion that might be better than what we had originally but worse than what we have now is a consummately bad idea. But since when has any Labour government been able to identify consummately bad ideas for what they are? Just look at the track record.
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