Those Lucky busmen

Malta Independent Thursday, 28 January 2010, 00:00 Last update: about 18 years ago

I suppose the least popular people in Malta right now are bus owners, who have turned down an offer already considered to be truly exorbitant because they want another e10 million. They are even less popular than the government, if that is at all possible.

They have been offered e98,000 for each old bus – and there are 370 of them on the road – and e118,000 for each low-floor bus (the ‘new’ ones, of which there are 130). Over and above this, they also get a 10-year guaranteed job with the new public transport service provider, which will start off saddled already with a burden it does not need. As Helga Ellul at the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry pointed out forcefully a few days ago, this is not the way the real world works.

Bus-drivers who are currently operating the routes should be interviewed for a job with the new transport service provider, yes, and it is likely that most of them will be taken on. After all, it makes much more sense to take on those who know the job and the routes already, rather than to begin finding and training people afresh. But a guaranteed job? I hardly think so. Forcing employers to keep people on the payroll even when they are redundant is the way the Labour government of the 1970s and early 1980s thought and acted.

I can see where the government is coming from on this, even though I think the sums involved are too much and that the bus-owners are being credited with more leverage than they really have. Endless attempts have been made to bring our public transport system into the modern age, but all have failed. The bus owners appear to be in an entrenched position. So right now, it’s a matter of whatever will do the job just has to be done. But it’s hard to stomach.

The Public Transport Association has presented the Transport Minister with its list of wants, and the reasons why it has rejected that quite lucrative offer of e52.4 million. They say this kind of compensation is not enough, because it doesn’t cover their investment. They want e116,000 for old buses and e140,000 for low-floor buses, and that means a whole package of e62 million, plus the 10-year guaranteed jobs.

The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry has spoken of its “utter disbelief” at what is going on. It says the government is being irresponsible with taxpayers’ money. It’s easy to understand the anger: at a time when businesses are faced with much higher utilities bills, they have to watch such great sums of money being given away to people who are more or less holding the state to ransom. There is no connection between the two. The government can’t take that e62 million, or e52.4 million, and use it to give cheap electricity to businesses. That certainly is not, to quote Mrs Ellul, how the real world works. But a sense of moral outrage certainly does kick in here. It just doesn’t seem right, or fair.

The Transport Minister has gone out of his way to point out that the money will not come from central government funds, but from the transport authority’s budget – but to anyone standing out here, that’s all the same. Borma wahda, as the Maltese saying goes. There doesn’t seem to be a way out. I imagine we are all agreed that the situation cannot go on as it is. The bus system no longer serves its proper public purpose, which is why a car and a driving licence are the lifeline of most citizens of these tiny, overcrowded islands.

It appears that the government’s plan is to scrap the old buses and sell the new ones to the incoming operator. Vintage ones, and this is the amusing bit, will go on show in a transport museum. Perhaps after a certain number of years, we will be able to look at them without feeling annoyed, and with merely a sense of disbelief that we ever lived like that and that this was our public transport system.

Whichever way you look at it, it’s make or break time. Maybe it really is a case of paying them whatever it takes to get rid of them at last. And then it’s on to the next battle – ticket prices. I rather suspect that the principle of ‘you get what you pay for’ will not go down too well with those who are used to paying a few cents for a bus trip and might yet find they have to pay more, even if it’s for better service on a newer bus, with a driver who doesn’t curse you or make you think he’s doing you a favour by allowing you up. That’s one bridge that’s going to have to be crossed before long, no doubt about it.