If you get five Maltese together, you end up with divergent opinions on any road: should it be there in the first place, how it could be changed and what went wrong with its formation (when it was being built).

And if the authorities had to heed the many opinions, they would end up like Gahan in the traditional story: none the wiser and ever more foolish.

The government has now taken a drastic step and appointed a foreigner, Professor Dr Ing. Heinrich Semar, to be a director for Network Infrastructure at the Malta Transport Authority (ADT).

Prof. Semar is no newcomer to Malta, on the contrary he has been here since 1998.

In that year, the German government agency which he worked for made an offer for a tender for road consultancy experts to plan and design the Maltese roads.

The German agency, GTZ, won this tender and Prof. Semar was sent to Malta as one of the two German experts and consultants. Prof. Semar had been doing this sort of job around the world: five years in Burundi, Zimbabwe and other parts of the world plus two-and-a-half years in the UK doing research.

“I have now been in Malta for seven years,” he told me in an interview, “and it has become my first home.”

He was appointed director for Network Infrastructure after a public call for applications.

His new role is a shift from his previous consultancy role: it is an operational role and it brings him in line with government operations. However, he has retained his consultancy role and continues to lecture at university.

The shift to an operational role is significant, he says: as a consultant one states what is right and should be done but one does not shoulder the responsibility for the actions and decisions taken by the Directorate.

Over the past seven years, Prof. Semar and his colleague, Prof. Muller, have prepared a long-term project of planning and design for Malta’s roads. This Master Plan, which is continuously updated, is now being implemented with funds from the Italian Protocol, the Structural and Cohesion funds from the EU and the Malta government budget funds. The aim is to thoroughly overhaul the road network in Malta and bring it up to European standards.

The roads that are being built today, Prof. Semar told me, are being built to last for up to 25 years with minimal repairs, after which the surface is scarified and replaced and the road lasts for longer.

This will eliminate the pattern of building roads and having to rebuild them after only a few years.

The long-term plan is subdivided into a number of medium-term targets, which are in turn further subdivided into a large number of short-term plans for three month segments as an ADT internal control and workflow mechanism.

An all-out effort is now being made to keep to the target dates and to foster a sense of discipline and ethics to work according to a stated plan. This is necessary to keep track of all the activities in the Network Infrastructure Directorate (NID) like Maintenance programme, Rideability programme, larger and smaller projects and so on.

Prof. Semar referred to a recent article in this paper, which quoted a professional in the field who stated that the roads, although better, are still not being built to European standards. This is completely untrue, Prof. Semar said: if it did that ADT would be infringing the 2003 law which states that the standards of road building have to conform to European standards and they would undermine our own new Maltese standards.

Replying to what was stated in the article, Prof. Semar denied that parallel service ducts are being laid down under the road surface. All utilities are now housed in one duct, however when a road crosses another there could be two ducts meeting at an angle. All entities which provide utilities are co-operating and this co-operation is flourishing in all projects, not just the ones covered by the Italian funds.

It is true that there were some hiccups along the way but today one can note a huge difference. There may have been some arguments here and there, but the strategy has now been accepted and working together as partners in essence.

The new proposals for road building gather all stakeholders together right from the beginning. There is no fear now that a new road will be pulled up in five years’ time so that services and utilities can be passed.

It is true that in some roads the services were left in place, that is outside the ducts, since it was felt that it would be a waste of money to reroute them or lay new pipes or new connections when the existing ones can still be used. If the utilities had to replace all their existing services and relay them again, it would involve a huge expenditure, which at the end of the day would be funded by the tax payer.

But since the service ducts are now being laid along the new roads, if anything goes wrong and the existing services have a fault, the new services would use the service ducts. This, Prof. Semar said, makes economic sense.

Furthermore, prefabricated service ducts are being manufactured in Malta and used in most of the construction sites. There are now 12 moulders in Malta Prof. Semar said, and they are increasing their production of service ducts, which are 2.0 metres long, 1.8m high.

Nor is it true that the ducts are still being constructed by laying down stone slabs, a laborious exercise. The only places where stone slabs are being used is to support the rubble walls.

Looking ahead, Prof. Semar outlined the future work of his Directorate. Currently, a study is being carried out by a French consortium called BECOM. The study will evaluate the feasibility of upgrading Route One – the Freeport to Cirkewwa Route – and also do an environmental impact assessment. This route forms part of the Trans European Networks-Transport and any road works carried along it can be financed by the European Union.

This exercise is looking into what can be done about the junctions and in-parts – realignment – along this road, since there are places where a dual carriageway leads to a single carriageway, thus impeding traffic flow.

The exercise is also studying the possibility of widening the existing two lane thoroughfare, which comes to a standstill every time there is an accident, into a three to four-lane thoroughfare some time in the future.

This will enable the main road in Malta to join the Trans Europe Network.

Another important issue in this review is how to make the road safer.

Once the review is completed, it will be presented to the government.

The exercise will also review the state of the Regional Road bridges. It is probable that one of the bridges will have to be heavily upgraded to bring it up to EU standards. The decision, which will be taken in the coming weeks, following tests, will decide whether the bridge needs to be rebuilt or just upgraded.

The operations of the department are based on the priorities established by Cabinet in 2000 and are funded by the Italian Protocol funds, the EU Cohesion and Structural funds and the Maltese government’s budget.

No less than 14 stakeholders have been involved in the basic decisions taken.

However, the operations are not fixed according to an immutable Masterplan that cannot be changed. The Masterplan is continually being upgraded and adjusted

Obviously, road building on its own will not solve the problems of Malta’s roads. Creating a viable and mass public transport system is a priority along with road building. ADT has its own traffic management directorate and its public transport directorate and the three come together at ADT level and mesh their plans at that level.

ADT, Prof. Semar said in conclusion, has a very disciplined set-up and is organised in such a way to draw together all the stakeholders to give Malta the roads the new Malta deserves.