All will be revealed, supposedly, tomorrow.

The government is moving fast to replace Arriva and the crunch date is supposed to be tomorrow.

From the hints that the minister has been dropping, the government intends to renationalize public transport, at least temporarily, and then issue a call for expression of interest. Following that, there has to be a delay when the expressions of interest come in, then a selection process follows, and negotiations with the chosen operator take place. It will only be on the conclusion of all this that the new operator can start taking over public transport.

That, at any rate, seems to be the general idea.

Even so, on this very meagre information offered, one would have preferred the issue to have been debated by Parliament first before re-nationalisation takes place. After all, there is the matter of public funds involved. The government has not said so far how much this whole operation will cost the country, nor what subsidy will be allocated for public transport over a year.

Maybe too the European Commission could have something to say about this process, since re-nationalisation could be conceivably interpreted as State aid and there are EU rules about that.

The government has promised that the ‘nationalisation’ period will be as short as possible but there is nothing so permanent as something that is called temporary. The desire by so many in the public transport sector to be employed with the government is a very strong desire, and was recently highlighted with the huge title on L-Orizzont that the public transport employees will become STATALI.

The minister and his government have been bountiful with the reasons they have given why talks with Arriva broke down. Arriva was losing money, it was said. And the new government demands – to do away with bendy buses, to add more and more routes – would seem to have broken the camel’s back.

That Arriva never measured up to the public’s expectations (except in Gozo which was very well served) is a fact. That Arriva did not roll out all the services it promised is true as well. That the first months of the new service was pure mayhem is an under-statement. That the routes, as first conceived, were chaotic and convoluted goes without saying.

The country now expects to hear from the parties involved that there could not be any negotiated solution than that of having Arriva pack and go home and the whole laborious process of choosing a new one start again.

Anyway, what’s done now is done. There should be post-mortems but they’re rather academic now.

What’s more important is to learn the lessons from the Arriva fiasco and to retain those elements that will have survived – especially that public transport belongs to the private sector and can never be nationalized. Equally, the importance of having environmental-friendly buses and buses that can be used by the physically-impaired. To that, one must add buses that run on time and driven by courteous drivers. Is that too much to ask?