When reading about the transport reform, it was difficult to determine which country I was reading about. Could it be Malta, the country where we have third world country roads and no plan to fix them?

This is a country where the government confiscates cars off foreigners who fail to pay registration tax and gives these old cars to civil servants to perform their duties. The Ministry of Education still uses buses (purple and white), which are over 40 years old, for our children. Even more worrying is the fact that we can still see 20-year-old ambulances and wheelchair carriers which were second-hand imports used in Malta today (The life span of an ambulance in Europe is three to five years). Is it more dangerous if a minibus breaks down on its way to school than if an ambulance breaks down on its way to hospital? The government seems to lack the funds to replace these vehicles, yet expects self-employed drivers to replace their minibuses every 12 years without any financial support.

Today a new minibus can cost up to €70,000. The owner would have barely finished paying off the loan to buy this vehicle when it would be time to change it again. We must realise that at the end of the day, it will be the customer that will be paying for this extravagance.

Last year laws changed and obliged drivers to only carry one child per seat and the use of seatbelts on all seats. Many of the owners of minibuses without seatbelts voluntarily installed them and got approved by a certified engineer and the ADT. This change caused an increase of 15 per cent for the customer. I can't imagine what sort of increase we should expect with this reform. I'd rather see my children off to school in an older minibus which has passed all the necessary tests rather than watch a brand new minibus drive past my house while I have to drive my kids to school due to high bills. Some parents are already finding it difficult as it is.

We must remember who we are and not compare ourselves with countries like Germany, France and UK but with countries like Cyprus, Sicily and Portugal. It seems like we're getting too big for our own boots.