Austin Gatt is taking notice, if not actually losing sleep over the public transport mêlée. While claiming bafflement at being blamed for Arriva’s poor show (as far as I know, he was the minister responsible for bringing Arriva to Malta), he said on Thursday that he would continue hounding the company until it provided the bus service expected of it. So he does recognise his responsibility.
It all started on Wednesday when Minister Gatt launched new ICT courses at the university. At the end of the speeches, a 20-year-old student, in her final year, lost her cool and swore at the minister saying he was to blame for what has become a white elephant − our new pubic transport system.
She told the minister he should be ashamed of the service commuters were getting. She complained that although the Arriva website claimed the journey from Attard to Naxxar should take 40 minutes; the trip took her two hours.
Can you blame the girl? She would have landed in Paris and on her way in Rome in that time and another half an hour would have got her to one of London’s airports.
However, although I understand how easy it is to use swear words when angry and frustrated, she gave the minister the excuse to avoid a confrontation. She has since apologised for her language but not for speaking her mind. Brava.
Although I expected the university officials to take exception to the language used, it was ridiculous for them to say that it “was not the time or place for such complaints”.
Politicians, especially ministers, should be confronted at every opportunity, if citizens are dissatisfied on how things are being run. I hope our seat of learning is not trying to suppress freedom of expression. The student was also taken to task by the student’s union no less. KSU reps seemed to concur with the university officials and told her that they were not happy with her confronting the minister and said that they were tackling the issue.
That made me wonder what kind of agenda the KSU is following. The representatives’ own political ambitions? “I come to university to learn and to use every scrap of knowledge given in class, not to use the campus as a training ground for my political career. It pains me to speak ill of KSU because I know that there are some genuine members who have the student’s best interest,” said the student.
Austin Gatt is arrogant but he is also a clever fox. He promptly issued a statement saying: “I was a student once and I expect nothing less from a student, but to speak her mind and publicly express her protests without fear.”
So are the university officials now going to retract on “not the time or place for such complaints”? Especially, since her action eventually got a result from the minister. “I assure Ms Abela Garrett that I will continue hounding Arriva until they deliver the service contracted for and which the travelling public expects,” Dr Gatt said.
Well, that is one of his many responsibilities after all, so why the bafflement? I have yet to sample the new buses as a commuter. However, I encounter them several times daily as a driver. It is not just the commuter’s problems that the minister needs to reckon with.
Although Arriva might eventually have enough trained drivers to run the buses effectively and the Transport Authority together with Arriva might finally sort out the routes maze, there would still be a substantial problem, which is more difficult to solve − the size of the buses.
The number of times a day queues of cars are stuck because the buses are too wide or too long, or both, for our narrow streets are innumerable. Besides, a bus stops at a bus stop and all the traffic comes to a standstill, because they take up too much space and cannot be overtaken.
Foresight was so obviously lacking when the buses were ordered. There are a few of the right size for our towns and villages, but not nearly enough. The majority of the buses are only suitable for dual carriageways and wide roads and are just causing havoc on many of our roads.
Arriva and SmartCity are proving to be poorly chosen names. The buses are very slow in arriving at their destinations, among other problems, and the IT city is boding less than a smart future. Some of the structures are in place but so far they are empty shells. But take heart, at least it looks like we shall be able to grab some lunch and pop in for a check up and maybe a ride on an even bigger white elephant.
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