Opposition leader Joseph Muscat said today that the problem which the government had was not called Franco Debono but Lawrence Gonzi.

Speaking in Parliament, Dr Muscat said he could not understand how Transport Minister Austin Gatt had spoken warmly of the bus service reform so far, but had offered to resign.

This, Dr Muscat said, was a government which had had to change direction on a whole series of issues, which showed that the government had lost the plot and was lurching from one crisis to another.

In such a sensitive period for Maltese families and for Europe as a whole, the prime minister had spent much of the past weeks worrying about the problems of his party rather than the problems of the country.

Before the last election, then Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett promised the bus owners to retain their services for 10 years, and then to compensate them if there were changes thereafter. He was sure this letter was sent with approval by Dr Gonzi. After the election, new Transport Minister Austin Gatt ignored this agreement. So either Dr Gonzi allowed this change, or he let the new minister do what he liked, with taxpayers meeting the cost of €52m to buy back the unkept promise.

Transport Malta had spent more than two years drawing up the new routes according to the number of buses it wanted. The reform was launched seven months late, at the height of summer, and there was still a pending issue with the European Commission on the double tariff system which could have major implications on Malta. This issue, surely, should have been cleared before the service was launched.

Then the confusion started, first with the Bisazza Street issue.

The minister, Dr Muscat said, had not said how much more would be paid for the six routes changes made since the Arriva service was launched.

The reform showed how right the European Commission was when it said that the government had many grand plans, for poor implementation.

The PL had been accused of opportunism. The Opposition had been monitoring the situation but held off for 12 weeks as a sign of prudence and good will.

The PN's executive's contribution to this debate, yesterday, was only to say that it wuld revisit the subject next February.

The bottom line was that the reform was drawn up by pen pushers who did not heed those who could contribute. They then spent €80,000 on a 30-minute launch ceremony where they promised perfection.

Many theories had been made on whether Dr Gatt should resign. Last June, Foreign Minister Tonio Borg argued that a minister could resign when he repeated and stood by policies which resulted in being a total failure. Yet Dr Gatt had just stoutly defended his actions, when everyone knew that his reform had failed. His position fell neatly within Dr Borg's criteria.

During the Dolores Cristina controversy on the funds for student programmes, an Office of the Prime Minister spokesman said the minister should not resign since this issue was not raised to the political level and responsibility had been borne further down.

In this case, no one could claim that the political level had not been reached. And no one had resigned, even further down.

Various strategic mistakes had been made in this reform. One them was the scaling down of the Valletta terminus - and now the buses were again parked around the fountain.

Another, more serious failure, was that cars on the roads had not decreased. The ministers had opted not to use funds on the Kappara junction and elsewhere because he wrongly claimed there would be fewer cars, and he wanted to use the funds on the Ghadira road.

Another mistake was how the Blata l-Bajda park and ride was no longer free of charge, and yet the CVA was not removed.

In July 1994 Minister Lawrence Gatt and Lino Gauci Borda resigned and In-Nazzjon carried a feature extolling high moral values where mistakes were recognised and the consequences were shouldered. The author was none other than Austin Gatt.

Now the Prime Minister was backing Austin Gatt and assuming responsibility by the Cabinet as a whole. This showed how Dr Gonzi was hostage of the situation, if not of the individual. Dr Gonzi was weak and intent only on his party's survival.

This when Dr Gatt did not have much to show. Under his watch, Malta Shipyards lost many millions on the Fairmount contracts. He was responsible for Air Malta in 2007 when he promised profitability within two years.

Dr Gatt was the responsible minister when real estate in Qawra worth €10m was transferred to GO during the privatisation exercise. He promised to get it back, but did not. Dr Gatt had been responsible for the introduction of high water and electricity rates, he was responsible when the BWSC contract was awarded.

This minister had also squandered money.  €277,000 had been spent just on the facade of the new Mita offices in Sta Venera.

This was the minister who had not kept his word on job creation at SmartCity.

Whatever tonight's vote was, the people knew that the government had problems, and the country needed wisdom and stability, not such problems, Dr Muscat said.