Malta’s dreadful roads and abysmal driving standards have been the butt of jokes for years. Since Malta joined the European Union, some new roads have been built and the arterial network improved but the island is as yet miles behind other countries in the standard and maintenance of its roads.

No government has ever dealt with the problem, and, two years into its term, the Labour government is nowhere near solving it. Perhaps the most apposite remark made so far in readers’ responses to news stories about the bad state of the roads is that Labour had no roadmap.

The problem worsens with each rainfall, with motorists having to drive literally at their peril, particularly at night when it becomes practically impossible to calculate the depth of water-filled potholes or trenches dug by incompetent or irresponsible service contractors.

Amid the ministerial fanfare that greets the constant flow of glowing reports about the island’s growing economy, the glitzy events put on to celebrate this or that event or project, the over-abundance of political rhetoric used by the Prime Minister and his government, Malta sports a road infrastructure that puts the country to shame.

Some of the roads are not even fit for off-roading. What galls is that no sooner are craters patched up than they become exactly like they were before the rainfall. Finally, the Prime Minister has sensed the people’s anger and, not a moment too soon, says his government intends to look into the problem.

Repeating his stale mantra that “the best has yet to come”, he now admits that the next biggest challenge is to improve the infrastructure, particularly roads. He was quoted saying that he was not happy with most of the roads. Who is? That the people “deserve better”, as he put it, is the understatement of the year.

According to Dr Muscat, the government is still mulling the best way to go about introducing a public-private partnership for road maintenance and he hopes this would ease the burden on local councils.

The idea for Projects Malta to go into partnership with the private sector was floated in the last Budget but no further details have been given so far, except that at least 10 such partnerships are on the cards.

However, only €11.8 million has been allocated in the Budget for the construction and maintenance of roads, apart from the EU funds. This does not seem to be quite enough. According to one traffic expert, the sum required could be nearer to €50 million.

If money is a problem, a greater difficulty is ensuring that whoever is contracted to lay new roads or patch up potholes does the work professionally. More often than not, the work is not up to the required standard.

It also often happens that when new roads are tarmacked, they are ripped apart again for the replacement of water pipes that are so haphazardly laid that they burst within months.

Transport Malta ought to count itself lucky that only 209 claims for compensation were made by drivers between 2007 and last year. The amount paid out amounts to just €26,000 when, clearly, if all drivers were to file a claim for damage done to their cars through the bad state of the roads, the sum could easily run into the millions.

People deserve better roads, while the country deserves better driving standards.

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