Yesterday one of my employees arrived late for work, not five or 10 minutes late but over one hour. She was meant to clock in at 10am but she only managed to arrive at 11.10am. She lives in Sliema and arrived at the bus stop to catch a bus to Ta’ Qali Crafts Village at 9am.

For one hour no bus arrived, and this is not the first time that this has happened. Quite often she has to call someone to pick her up, or even get a taxi to Ta’ Qali after spending an hour at the bus stop. Buses 203 and 202 which pass through Ta’ Qali are supposed to pass by every 30 minutes, but very often trips are completely skipped.

I advised her that it would be faster if she went to Valletta and took a Rabat bus to the main road, but she said that at least four buses to Valletta passed by but were all full. The bus stop in question is on the Sliema promenade near Surfside.

Incidentally, there are no direct buses to the Crafts Village from Valletta. Before the transport sector ‘reform’ there were direct buses not only from Valletta bust also from Sliema and Buġibba.

No wonder the Crafts Village is becoming more and more of a ghost village and crafts are vanishing.

Is it so difficult to make sure that a scheduled bus, which people are advised about, leaves on time? Do we know what a timetable is? This has been going on for too long now, I think we waited more than enough for the service to be rectified.

My employee arrived at work angry, frustrated, embarrassed and in no mood to focus on her work. How can a person be expected to spend two hours each way to go to work and back in tiny Malta?