One would be hard-pressed not to notice the almost continual road improvement projects ongoing around the country.  The last decade has seen the improvement of hundreds of roads, some through major projects, around the country, and Infrastructure Malta does not appear to be stopping its work anytime soon.

In almost all cases this work is most necessary: resurfacing works, rehabilitative works, major improvements to respond to traffic demands.  These are all extremely viable reasons to carry out works, and this editorial is not intended to dispute that.

However, an all too common theme pattern is when works are completed, but dug up again within a matter of months because some other state entity must carry out works, or because the previous works weren’t good enough to begin with.

This has happened a few times in Mosta alone in the past few months.

First, Triq il-Kbira was closed for parts of it to be dug up only months after it was finally finished because the storm gratings used in the project turned out to be faulty and had dislodged.  This is a project, mind, which had already taken far longer than was initially scheduled to complete.

Then just this week, three parts of Triq Durumblat between Attard and Mosta was dug up, after this particular road took two and a half years to complete for new electricity cables to be passed underground.

Likewise this week, part of Mosta’s Constitutional Street – which was just resurfaced – had to be dug up because the works had caused damage to the sewage system beneath.

These are just three (quite major) roads in one locality in the span of the last few weeks.  There are no doubt other examples.

The unfortunate truth is that while these works are necessary, it seems that at times the contractors engaged to carry them out cut corners and do not do their jobs properly or – worse still – there is such a lack of coordination between different state entities that a job which was previously thought to be finished has to be revisited for more works.

When a recently completed road has to be dug up again because an entity like Enemalta or the Water Services Corporation, for instance, needs to carry out its own works the message sent is that the left hand within the government doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

Such works should be done in a coordinated manner.  Roadworks are inconvenient to commuters and more so to residents in the area, but the vast majority will understand their necessity.  That understanding will start to wear thin – and rightly so – however if the roadworks drag on and have to be redone twice over because of poor planning between government authorities.