Urban Development and Roads Minister Jesmond Mugliett is not having an easy time.

With the Malta Labour Party once again calling for his resignation and with the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises at odds with him, Mr Mugliett finds himself in another sticky situation.

Not so long ago, Mr Mugliett was at the heart of another issue, one involving the abuse that was taking place at the Malta Transport Authority. At the time he had offered to resign, but Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had not accepted.

Now Mr Mugliett is facing the anger of the Paceville and St Julian’s businessmen and the opposition’s repeated calls for his resignation. This time, the crux of the matter is the Manwel Dimech Bridge.

The MLP is saying Mr Mugliett should resign because of the “gross incompetence” in all the projects that the minister has been involved in, with the delays in the construction of the bridge being one of the main points that the opposition is putting forward.

On the other hand, the GRTU is saying that business in the Paceville area has dropped because of the work on the bridge, and that it risks facing a weak Christmas season because only one of the two decks is open to traffic.

The first mistake that was committed was that the deadline given for the completion of the bridge was less than a year after the work started. It was apparent, even to people who are not experts, that the work that was necessary would have taken longer.

Whoever was responsible for that calculation put Mr Mugliett – who is politically responsible for the project – in a bad light, because the months passed quickly and not even half of the bridge was ready by the time the deadline expired. The first deck was in fact completed last month, when the two decks should have been ready by last September, according to the initial estimate.

The second mistake was the controversy over the extension of the deadline, with March and May being mentioned. It seems obvious that the government is insisting that the bridge will be ready in March because by that time the election will presumably be over. Yet, if one were to take the first deck as a benchmark, it is hard to imagine that the second one will be completed in such a short time.

The pressure to finish the project on time, also pushed the government to enter into a dispute with the GRTU. On the one hand it was talking about negotiations for a possible solution to what the GRTU was asking – that is, that both decks are open to traffic until the Christmas season is over – but then the demolition of the deck leading to Paceville started. This means that there is no way that the GRTU request can be fulfilled.

Mr Mugliett’s line of defence is based on two issues. The first is that Labour leader Alfred Sant has so far refused an invitation to meet with ADT staff to discuss the project. The second is that he has called on the Public Accounts Committee to investigate claims that the Labour leader has made. Mr Mugliett has also filed libel suits in court to defend himself from the accusations being levelled at him by the MLP.

There are lessons to be learnt from this. Ministers should be more careful when dishing out deadlines, as ultimately they will be held accountable if the projects involved are not completed in time. The same goes for the costs involved to carry out such projects – why does it happen so often that the cost of a project grows substantially beyond the initial estimates?