There isn’t a shadow of a doubt that Joseph Muscat wanted Transport Malta under his watch to be the ‘flagship’ of his government. This was quite clearly demonstrated when, after only two days in his new role as Prime Minister, Muscat decreed the transfer of James Piscopo from chief executive officer of the Labour Party to head the ‘new’ Transport Malta.

It was a huge injection of trust in Piscopo’s ability to spearhead Muscat’s highly-publicised ‘road map’, fittingly through the workings of our national transport corporation.

Today, as we reach the halfway mark of this administration, we can, and we should, cast our attention on Transport Malta’s and the transport sector’s overall performance over the past two and a half years and whether these have reached the levels the Labour government pronounced prior to the election or to the many declamations of its political leader.

We don’t need to overtask our minds to have even a cursory look at the workings of Transport Malta. You need only to remember what happened in the second half of July and the first week of August.

During that period, Transport Malta was daily hitting the headlines… always for the wrong reasons. First of all, we had the nightmarish launch of the Tallinja card, which was described as a ‘disaster’ by all those who had to use public transport during that initial period. But it was equally disastrous for thousands of people who had to suffer long hours of waiting in the scorching heat to have their card corrected to make it compatible with the system.

It was a grand fiasco for Muscat’s flagship, its management and, above all,Muscat’s government.

But that was not the only mishap in our public transport system in the last few weeks. The public transport – notwithstanding the fact that it is being subsidised three times over the amount it used to be under the Nationalist administration – is passing through its worst patch with users’ complaints getting worse by the day and with no substantial improvements being registered.

As if that situation was not enough, concurrently with this abysmal situation of the public transport, Transport Malta was, once more, a culprit in another ‘national’ debacle. It was the rebuilding the Coast Road – a project which was wholly prepared and financed (through EU funds) under a Nationalist government – for quite a long time but its completion was delayed by months. Transport Malta, all of a sudden, decided on the temporary closure of the Coast Road and this caused mayhem as traffic came to a complete standstill in many parts of Malta but, especially, in Qawra, Buġibba, Burmarrad and St Paul’s Bay.

Transport Malta went from being a flagship of the Labour government to becoming its black sheep

Adding insult to injury, when, finally, the Coast Road or, to put it better, one lane of it, was opened to provide two-way traffic, they didn’t bother to mount proper signage so that motorists were describing the road as a ‘deathtrap’.

In other words, when it comes to road infrastructure, the Labour government is just continuing on the plans made under the previous administration with no new additions. Worth noting that even the Marsa junction was originally contemplated and included for future EU funding by the last PN administration. As for the Kappara junction, what we know for sure is that the Labour government has not yet found a diversion route and we are still waiting for this road map’s timeline.

Let us not forget that Transport Malta is not just responsible for public transport, road infrastructure and road management but is also entrusted with the responsibility of ship movements in our ports. It was, thus, extremely preoccupying to learn that a Turkish ship ‘escaped’ from Maltese territorial waters. A private company that supplied over €42,000 worth of fuel to this ship is holding Transport Malta responsible for the departure. What is even more worrying is the fact that this was the third such incident in the span of a year during which arrest warrants issued by the court were defied by merchant ships in Maltese waters.

It is to be noted that a government inquiry into the first of these incidents made recommendations to avoid another “embarrassing incident”.

All these happenings at Transport Malta tell a very sad story which gives an accurate overview of this government entity. But it also reflects how the present Labour government is administering the country down the road to political decay.

The government’s original sin inthis regard is that it reneged on itsmain electoral promise that it was going to be a shining example of accountability, transparency and meritocracy. What happened over the past 29 monthsat Transport Malta, among so manyothers, brilliantly defines this Muscat government and how what the Maltese electorate was promised went completely haywire.

In fact, in this relatively short period of time, Transport Malta went from being a flagship of the Labour government to becoming its black sheep.

Kristy Debono is the Nationalist Party’s spokeswoman for financial services, IT and gaming.