Poor fiscal discipline

Among the daily dose of political banter we watch on TV, occasionally we notice a particular issue highlighted by either political party which on the face of it is being done to gain political mileage, however this is not always the case.

One such issue is the cost of the two-kilometre long Rabat to San Lawrence road rebuilding project, which is claimed to be costing the taxpaying public, all be it with the assistance of EU funds, near enough twice the amount projected, Lm1 million above the Lm1.2 million in the initial projected costs.

The blasé reasons attributed to this monumental overspend was to achieve "best quality of work specification", which will leave everyone wondering what in the name of sanity are the initial projected estimates and variations conducted for in the first instance?

One of the reasons given was that they found clay in the foundation's base which makes one wonder why whoever conducted the groundwork for the initial projections never thought of drilling a few pilot holes to investigate the lay of the land. We are here talking of a road rebuilding project in the middle of Gozo and not the channel tunnel in the middle of the North Sea.

Such an incident highlights the poor fiscal discipline that exists in our country when what is supposed to be a simple road rebuilding job ends up costing nearly twice the amount. The Lm1 million over budget is attributed to this one particular project, which should make us taxpayers shudder to think about the overspend on similar projects which are projected to cost big money. And before anyone assumes that this letter is politically motivated, I declare publicly that I am a floating voter.