It was meant to be the cherry on the cake, the best evidence that the government was right to pay off the previous owners and to do away with the previous bus system.

Instead, so many have been the complaints about Arriva, particularly after its disastrous beginning, but all through this year and a half it has been here, that the government is now taking very clear steps to distance itself from the new service and to join the chorus of people who complain about the Arriva dis-service.

This is the same government, mind, that led the dance to 3 July 2011, with press events showcasing the new buses, the new service and lastly, on the eve of the new service, with an elaborate and costly event at the new bus terminus with Minister Austin Gatt saying the time of ‘buzullotti’ was over.

Which was the signal, instead, for the ‘buzullotti’ to begin. As many as half the drivers did not turn up the next day (and that’s not because they were nursing a hangover from the launch!), people waited in vain for the bus in scorching sun … We all remember the scenes. And still the government was optimistic the service would get better and kept saying these were just initial hitches.

The company kept changing its top people again and again, the government imposed a new timetable this time after a real consultation with the local councils and new bus routes were opened up.

But still the complaints continued to come. There is a paradox: the new bus system is a private one, as the one before it was, but still the government is taxed with anything that goes wrong with it just as if it were a public service.

What is happening now is that the government is clearly taking steps to distance itself from the service and, at long long last, the government is now taking up the defence of the commuters.

It has been announced that Transport Malta is to focus on particular routes about which many complaints have been made (and also conveniently which serve the locality where the man who set up the system is now an election candidate) and that, if the system is not up to standard by the end of the month, the government intends to ‘send in its troops’ the latter being a hired coach to take up the slack.

This was also confirmed by Minister Austin Gatt in Parliament a couple of days later with Dr Gatt making some points even clearer. Dr Gatt said that from studies TM have made, it is clear that Arriva do not have enough buses, especially in view of the many new routes that have been added.

Prompt came the reply from Arriva’s newest boss (see page 7). Richard Hall said there are enough buses to serve the routes. He disagreed with the (widespread) public perception that the service is not improving.

Mr Hall may be new to the Malta operation so he cannot remember the clear commitments the company made to the public which it has not kept – to passengers waiting on a bus stop that an SMS would announce when the next bus would come; that a system would be introduced whereby passengers could report problems and get clear answers, etc. People who have complained get shunted off to a customer care person and no follow up is ever reported.

To which one must add the deteriorating quality of drivers (mostly mass-recruited with just a pasting of training), shoddy standards of dress and behaviour, lack of elementary courtesy with passengers, and buses that have been to the wars, so many are the accidents they have been into.

The good news is that the government is (belatedly) woken up to what is going on and is taking up the defence of the passengers. The company is clearly replying it will not increase the buses for there are enough. So the only way forward for government is to fine the company for its many faults, until the company is made to see reason.