The photo published in this newspaper yesterday, showing a long queue of cars as they waited to embark on a Gozo Channel ferry while a similar long file of drivers tried to make their way out of the harbour shows the difficulties being encountered in the transport system between the two islands.
The situation at the other end is not good either. Earlier this week, we had the Gozo Business Chamber complaining that parking spaces at Cirkewwa would temporarily not be available because of the work that is being carried out at the Gozo end of the ferry transport system.
The Cirkewwa-Mgarr link between the two islands has been a matter of concern for quite some time now, largely because of the work that is being carried out in a bid to improve the transport system.
While nobody has any complaints about the Gozo Channel Company services per se, there is no doubt that the unfinished work at both terminals are also hampering the company’s activities .
Let’s face it, both the Mgarr and Cirkewwa terminals needed to be upgraded to meet with the demand and improve reliability, but both projects have been going on for far too long, to the detriment of all those who want to make the trip between Malta and Gozo.
Work at both ends has started, stopped, restarted and has been re-planned and re-designed over a number of years. This is not to mention the cost of such projects, that keep escalating.
It is understandable that work needs to be carried out to make the two terminals more pleasing to the eye and, most of all, to enable the transport system to work more efficiently. But it seems that, in spite of the fact that a number of years have passed since the green light was given to the original project, it is still unclear as to what is being done to improve the situation and, worse still, the end is nowhere in sight.
What is happening at Cirkewwa and Mgarr is certainly not the way to attract tourists to Gozo. The Maltese will probably still continue to visit the sister island for brief holidays, but at the same time, in this case, they have a right to grumble about the situation they have to face. The Gozitans, particularly those who work in Malta, also have to suffer the consequences, more so now that they cannot leave their cars at Cirkewwa overnight.
In its statement last Monday, the Gozo Business Chamber remarked that the work being carried out at both ends is having a negative effect on Gozo’s economy.
Only a few weeks ago, statistics showed that there was a fall in the number of passengers and drivers carried by Gozo Channel in the first quarter of this year, and the chamber and the government squabbled over whether the increase in the price of tickets introduced last year had had an effect or not.
Well, the state of affairs at Cirkewwa and Mgarr will not help improve the figures. If the road off Mgarr Harbour was blocked last Wednesday afternoon, what will happen when traffic between the two islands is heavier? What will the situation be like during the Santa Marija weekend, in just three weeks’ time?
The government would do well to see that work on both terminals is completed as soon as possible and without any more hitches. We cannot afford to have these important terminals left in such a state anymore. They have been in “a state of construction” for far too long.