From Dr J. L. Attard

I am writing this letter to express my opinion on the service given by Gozo Channel Company. I will refer mainly to my daily experiences. I am a Gozitan who must (because of monopoly) make use of this ferry service daily to reach my workplace in Malta. I have been doing so for the past six years and therefore I can share many experiences about the service that fellow Gozitans experience everyday to earn a living. Over the past few years the service structure has to some extent improved through government investment in new vessels and terminal at Mgarr.

Despite this I must point out that foot passengers at Mgarr are being kept waiting much longer than before to exit the new terminal structure built at Mgarr. Gozo Channel staff is instructed to prevent foot passengers from leaving the vessel through the car garage on the pretext of safety. The irony of all this is that at Cirkewwa foot passengers must leave the boat through the garage with the cars. So I ask myself, is it safe to exit through the garage at Cirkewwa and not at Mgarr? Above all this, the foot passenger ramp takes ages to open leaving us workers waiting, losing precious time.

Another and more crucial problem is the way some of the crew of Gozo Channel treat their clients. Some of them lack training client approach, which sometimes even verges on arrogance. I am not generalizing because some members of the crew are really helpful. The problem aggravates when one travels by car. One cannot imagine the feeling of having to wait at Cirkewwa for one or two hours in the queue after a day’s work and then a “friend of a friend” jumps the queue on a “legitimate claim” that he works with the company or he is a government official and so on. I think we all pay taxes and we all pay the fare to board the ferry so I cannot understand this company policy, if there is any. This is something that cannot be tolerated in 2008; it’s something of the past when there was the separation of classes and race.

One can even claim that this policy (if there is any!) is anti constitutional in view of the monopoly the company has. The Constitution states in article 44 that: “No citizen of Malta shall be deprived of his freedom of movement, and for the purpose of this article the said freedom means the right to move freely throughout Malta, the right to reside in any part of Malta, the right to leave and the right to enter Malta…” Obviously here the word Malta implies Maltese Islands including Gozo. Granting somebody preferential treatment on the Gozo Channel Ferry monopoly services can even amount to discrimination, breaching another article of the Constitution. In fact article 45(3) states that, “the expression ‘discriminatory’ means affording different treatment to different persons…” These rights are so sacred in a modern democratic society that the government must provide and improve the service between the islands even if the company is not profitable. The reason is that the service is of a social nature as it is the only means that connects the island to the rest of the world. In my opinion, this is the most fundamental objective that the ferry service should have and not profit making. Obviously this argument holds as long as the company continues to be granted monopoly on the Mgarr and Cirkewwa terminals.

Another appropriate thing that must be done is a study on who is using the service and why. In recent years the number of cars and people crossing over to Gozo has increased drastically. This in turn has created long queues. Many claim that the principal reason is internal tourism, due to more Maltese investing in property in Gozo. This may be true, but how many Gozitans cross daily or weekly to Malta to earn a living? There are several social economic factors affecting this number. One of the primary reasons is the Gozitan economy, which failed to regenerate itself, moving from one based on cheap labour to one based on professional services. This failure is bringing about mass migration to Malta since high quality jobs are drastically lacking in Gozo. I am a living witness and to a certain extent a victim of this lack of planning for job creation in Gozo. That is why I must, in the near future, either decide to settle in Malta permanently or else commute daily using Gozo Channel services, and having to face some of its magnificent crew every day.

I am addressing this letter to The Malta Independent on Sunday because I know that if I address it to anyone else it would be useless. In fact I even think that every Gozitan who reads this letter will state that I am correct but will leave it to destiny to solve his or her problem. Destiny – this is the magic word that has shaped our small island history since time immemorial and our population will leave it again to destiny to shape their daily life and standard of living.

Joseph L. Attard

XAGHRA