Nicola Abela Garrett has succeeded in doing what few others have managed to do – baffling the usually cocksure Transport Minister Austin Gatt.

Austin Gatt is not ideal customer services official material, not least because of his habit of dismissing complaints- Claire Bonello

Following her outburst criticising the sorry state of the public transport system and describing the minister in the way in which he is habitually referred to by commuters, Gatt made a statement where he appeared lost for words.

He expressed surprise at the fact that he could in any way be linked to the failure of the Arriva bus system.

“I am still baffled as to why I should be blamed because a bus is late or because Arriva fails to respond to customer queries,” Gatt bleated, though he graciously conceded that he fully understood Abela Garrett’s frustration at Arriva’s performance.

Gatt is being disingenuous and acting as if the student criticised him because he was a tardy Arriva bus driver, or an inept customer care services officer with the company.

Of course, that wasn’t the point of Abela Garrett’s criticism. Everybody knows that Gatt isn’t one of the drivers behind an Arriva wheel. He’s more likely to be lolling around in the back seat of a Jaguar.

And he’s not ideal customer services official material either, not least because of his habit of dismissing complaints and confirming that he won’t lose a minute’s sleep over them.

The criticism being made is being directed Gatt’s way because of the concept of ministerial responsibility which is to the effect that ministers are ultimately responsible for the actions of their ministry or department.

It is a way of ensuring that someone is actually accountable for what goes on, and that blame is not forever shifted onto an anonymous civil service or to those entities carrying out services for the ministry.

A simplistic rendering of the concept of ministerial responsibility is “the buck stops here”.

Now Gatt and the odd government apologist (not that many going by the online reaction) might argue that the public transport system has now been entrusted to Arriva – a private company – and so the blame for buses arriving late, for inconvenient bus routes, for extended and circuitous trips and a non-responsive customer care service, cannot be placed at Gatt’s feet.

This argument might hold water had it not been for the fact that public transport reform in Malta has been presented as being Gatt’s baby.

He has been widely touted as being the man who would drag us out of the transport Dark Ages into a new era of clean, efficient and comfortable public transport.

Two years ago, the minister held a national conference about public transport reform.

The people attending sat down in a cinema auditorium and were treated to a show starring the Gatt and wannabe minister Manuel Delia.

The latter listed the complaints which used to be aired about the transport system at the time:

No connection between neighbouring villages; lack of information and of punctuality; inefficient bus ticketing; impolite drivers; and buses that were old, grimy and polluting.

Gatt had said, “Today’s system does not work. Now it has to change and improve the quality of the service.” And who was going to bring about that transition? Naturally the Minister of Transport would play a very large role in the process, and any improvement would be described as another feather in his cap and another of his achievements.

But then, as the American politician Dwight Morrow once said, “Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought.”

So if Gatt is going to act as if he was the mastermind behind the reform, and as if he had a major part in laying down the law for Arriva, he can’t expect to be exempted from criticism when there is negative feedback about the reform.

Only last month, the Transport Minister was crowing and poking fun at opposition leader Joseph Muscat for not “recognising the inevitable: the incontestable success of the public transport reform”.

He can’t suddenly turn round and act as if the transport system was something totally extraneous to his ministry.

These considerations will not impress Gatt unduly. Nor will they impress his acolytes – the ones attacking Abela Garrett for her outburst and telling her off for not appreciating the extent of her good fortune in being able to speak out without being beaten up.

It’s no wonder that no politician ever resigns here, no matter how great the fiasco taking place on his watch.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt