This newspaper has already warned but feels its warning is still not being heeded: objective and strategic thinking must go into how Malta will spend her EU funds from 2007 to 2013.
One notices an extraordinary haste, as if the present administration is afraid of leaving one euro for the government that will win the 2008 general election to spend.
Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech launched the National Strategic Reference Framework yesterday. He explained that the public consultation process launched last August and complemented by the series of public dialogues that have been held over the past two months by the Prime Minister involved a number of key stakeholders.
The main issues that came up at these meetings included the development of human resources; the issue of research and development and the knowledge economy; infrastructure related to accessibility, environment and tourism; the specificities of Gozo and the issue of administrative capacity.
As Mr Fenech explained, Cohesion Policy Commissioner Danuta Hubner will be visiting Malta on 23 and 24 April. Malta intends to make the first informal submission in May and hopefully, the formal submission before summer. Hence the haste.
As this newspaper has explained, this will probably, and hopefully, be the last time that Malta gets any substantial funds from the EU. If the experience of other countries can teache us anything, it will show us that there is a good and a bad way to spend EU structural funds. Some countries, like Ireland, acted strategically and for the long-term; other countries, like Portugal, went for quick fixes and hasty spending. It very much looks like Malta has chosen the latter route.
Take for instance the 13 road projects, announced on Friday, which will cost €315 million. One cannot say the projects are not useful: the embellishment of Council of Europe and Garibaldi Roads in Luqa; the creation of a grade separated junction at Marsa and the general upgrading of the whole road up to the Hamrun Bypass; the upgrading of the interchange at Msida Valley; the creation of a new junction to the sea Passenger Terminal; and the upgrading of the road from Marsa to Valletta. And there are other projects that will be announced soon, including the redesign of the Kappara roundabout and the creation of the much-delayed link road between that roundabout and Tigne, and so on.
Car drivers who get caught daily in the huge and ever growing bottlenecks between the Tarxien roundabout and Aldo Moro Road, or the tail-end of the Hamrun Bypass, or the no-traffic-lights jamboree around the Kappara roundabout, will undoubtedly accept the inevitable disruption coming their way, hoping that at long last the snags and bottlenecks in our roads will be cleared.
But will they? Has anyone really thought long-term and strategically about transport, especially in the huge urban conurbation that begins in Zabbar and ends in Pembroke? Or the cost of pulling up roads just built every so often (a change of minister, or of government, or a change in the ruling ideology of road building), without solving the main fundamental issue?
It seems, going by this example only, that not enough strategic thinking is being done. Has anyone considered that this huge urban conurbation needs, yes, roads that are without bottlenecks, but even more importantly a mass urban traffic system that cannot and will not be served by today’s ramshackle and split bus service? And has anyone considered comparing the ultimate cost of redoing up all roads to finding a strategic and long-term fast and environment-friendly solution to the rising number of cars that clog our roads?
This, of course, is just in the transport area. Considering the government’s proven track record of sheer inability where research and development is involved, or more training for more young people and those who want to learn, one cannot say that this government is going about the right way of spending the EU bonanza. Haste can make for wrong decisions.