No excuse for Naxxar street problems

What Paul Gatt told The Times in the report on works carried out in Parish Street, Naxxar is nothing but an insult to the intelligence of all those citizens who had to undergo what the reporter rightly defines as "four months of labyrinthine detours" - a great amount of inconvenience and harassment, to say the least.

Everyone admits that something might crop up during the carrying out of a project even if such a negligible stretch of road as this is involved. Such a large number of "problems", however, only indicates incompetence. What had cropped up and consequently delayed the works so that options may be studied should have cropped up before when studies had to be made on whatever was contained underneath the few remaining bits of tarmac which characterised the road. If these studies have not been done, then the person who is accountable for this should make way for somebody who is much more competent than he is.

The council ought to have known that in the remaking of a road all services should be replaced. That is only elementary planning and doesn't need any experts to come to this conclusion. Or are Mr Gatt and his council still of the mentality that once we resurface a road we should start digging the week after as, sadly enough, often happens in Malta?

Water mains were there and the Water Services Corporation could have been consulted much beforehand on what should have been done. A study of the road foundations was a must and not to be taken as the "birthday surprise parcel" which, when opened will reveal a jack-in-the-box. All the consultations had to be done before and not during. With today's technology this can be done. But it appears that the council is still living in the "abacus" era.

All other excuses brought forward by Mr Gatt are nothing but a load of thrash and need not be commented upon.