We have had people in court for abusing the social welfare system, cashing in cheques given for disabilities when they were not entitled to such benefits.

We have had foreigners receiving their mail in addresses belonging to others.

We have had Maltese families "relocated" to Siggiewi when a block of apartments was not yet completed.

We have had candidates fast-tracked or helped to get a driving licence.

We have had this and more.

So where is the next abuse coming from?

Most likely via the new set of incentives announced yesterday with the aim of reducing traffic congestion.

One such incentive unveiled by Transport Minister Chris Bonett is giving a whopping €25,000 for drivers to give up their licence for five years. It will not be a surprise if, sooner or later, we will come to know that some of those who took the offer are still regularly behind the wheel.

But, aside from having another door open to another kind of abuse, the initiative that the government has launched is a blatant admission that everything else has failed - and by everything we mean upgrading of the road infrastructure to meet today's needs, encouraging more use of public transport, new mass transportation systems, and the idea to attract fewer tourists who spend more.

The government is now throwing money at the problem.

It knows the Maltese mind-set. It knows that there will be people who will see it as a way of making some extra cash. But it should also know that there will also be people who will abuse the system. We've seen it happening many times.

This is mostly because there is little to no enforcement. It is useless having rules and regulations in place if, then, there is a laissez-faire attitude. For example, it is impossible to have an inspector monitoring what goes on in each and every construction site. Likewise, it is impossible and impractical to have police officers and Transport Malta officials monitoring every road and stopping cars at peak hours to check licences - causing more traffic congestion than we already have.

We are told that licence plates will have to be returned for drivers to qualify for the offer, and that they will not be allowed to drive any other licensed vehicle. But it's probable that there will be more than a handful of drivers who will be prepared to take the risk.

Another idea is to pay teenagers €6,000 over four years for them not to obtain a driving licence until they are 21. In the meantime, the government will be encouraging them to use a moped. One wonders how many parents are overjoyed to have their teenage sons and daughters zigzagging on those fragile machines in between cars and heavy vehicles.

But, aside from all this, what the government is tacitly confessing through these initiatives is that all its other policies to reduce traffic have failed. For one thing, time and again we have had ideas of mass transportation systems floated around, but they never materialised. We all remember the metro system that was "launched" before the last election, only for it to be put aside once the votes were counted.

Public transport (buses) has been made free of charge, but it has not encouraged the Maltese population to ditch their cars. There is still too much scepticism about reliability and frequency and, although the service has improved and the government is now to introduce more routes, most people still prefer to use their own vehicle in spite of traffic woes and parking problems. Anyone who uses buses frequently will have noticed that most of the commuters are foreigners - either tourists, or foreign workers who have settled in Malta.

Speaking of tourists, the government does not want to admit that we surpassed the saturation point in terms of arrivals long ago. As the numbers grew and are set to continue to grow even this year, the government has not understood the pressure that 3.5 million tourists place on our roads (and other sectors of the infrastructure such as energy, water, sewage etc). The country, as it is, is not geared for such a demand, as much as it is not geared to cater for a resident population of 550,000, which has come about because of lack of planning and forward-thinking.

This takes us to the road infrastructure. We've had several mega-projects that were intended to ease the traffic flow, and others are being done or are on the agenda. But Malta's size is what it is, and there is only so much that one can do. Then, when you have situations as there are at Salini, Pembroke and St Andrews - with two lanes becoming one - all the rest of the work is pointless as traffic will accumulate at the next bottleneck.

The government is trying to close the stable gate. But the horse has long bolted.