It must have taken a long and severe state of exasperation to compel Joe de Martino, a long-term militant of the Nationalist Party and mayor of Mosta for the last six years, to pen the article "The mayor's nightmare" (December 29). It was an act of courage to go public with that kind of protest against the indifference and even unfairness of the government in the face of the predicament of the people of Mosta and that of its council. It was also a cry for help for the authorities to help pull him, the mayor, out of the mess in which they have landed him.

The people of Mosta have been protesting loudly for far too long. They have been making comparisons with other towns which in the recent past have had most of their roads surfaced with hot tarmac. Apparently funds were not a problem in these cases; whereas in Mosta new roads, which are the responsibility of the central government, have been left unattended to for ages, even though the road tax was paid up years ago.

The mayor tells us that he too has not missed any occasion to hound the authorities for letting the people of Mosta endure these daily hardships. To no avail. Why? We too have five members of parliament representing us, three of whom on the government benches. Two of them are parliamentary secretaries and the third one is the prime minister himself. Do we need a minister to have our roads done? Or is it that our mayor is taken for granted? Or maybe it is perhaps the majority of Mosta people that are taken for granted.

The minister responsible for roads will probably want to remind us that half of Main Street was resurfaced only days ago. He might even wish to remind us of the works on that other main artery, Triq il-Qalbiena Mostin, even though in this case progress has been dragging on interminably (they have been stalled again for weeks now).

Why are we complaining? Because these are main arteries; they are not the roads families need to go in and out of their homes several times a day.

Mr de Martino finds some consolation in the fact that eight of such roads will soon have their makeover. This, however, is not likely to make the choir of protests any less loud; indeed it is likely to make it even louder. There are some 120 roads crying out for tarmac and these eight probably owe their luck to the generosity of the last financial protocol with Italy for providing the money; something which is never going to happen again. At this rate in whose lifetime will the last of these roads sing Hallelujah? And may God help the roads to come!

As for patching, it is difficult to understand why the council bothers to do it if it costs so much and lasts so little. And is it not disgraceful that contractors can only be asked to leave a deposit of a mere Lm100 for damage caused through their carelessness and lack of discipline? What sort of damage could this small amount cover?

I should think that this costly patching option must seriously worry the central government, and the ministers responsible for finance and for local councils in particular, to see so many funds going to waste all over the island. Cannot tenders for these patching works include a clause saying that the roads repaired must be maintained in constantly good condition for a specific period, say three years?

Could one form a parastatal road-laying cooperative, run by, say, ex-dockyard workers, to take up such contracts?

The Mosta council's tenure ends in a few months' time. I should like to think that Mr de Martino's public cry has not had too long a gestation period. The less informed of those who voted him in last time might still think he is the person responsible for this state of affairs. Others might expect more than a verbal protest from him and his fellow Nationalist councillors. If they take a bold step I am confident that the Labour councillors too will not fail their constituents on this hot issue.

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