A plain truth in all that is beingsaid about the country’s creaking road infrastructure is that the government failed to ensure that road development keeps pace with economic growth.
It is basic economic policy for government planners anywhere to forecast bottlenecks and to tackle them as they arise but it appears that, in this country, one government after another, ignored this principle and the longest they can plan for in advance is five years – from one election to the next.
This very serious default in lack of long-term planning is now fast turning what ought to have been a routine job into a mammoth task.
This government may well argue that the delay in seeing to what needed to be done has not obstructed economic growth, as shown by the all-round economic progress. Indeed, but the delay in addressing the problem head-on comes at a hefty economic price. It is also having a direct impact on the quality of life.
Now that the situation has reached crisis point, the government is finally planning to see to the road infrastructural deficit through a seven-year plan which, it says, will cost a staggering €700 million.
It is presenting this yet unexplained plan as an indication that it is alive to the acute need to upgrade the road infrastructure. However, it demonstrates that it lacked foresight when it failed to do the work concurrently as the economy expanded. It ought to be recalled that when motorists were complaining of road congestion the best a senior Transport Malta official could do was to discount it as a “perception”.
Even now that the abysmal state of the roads is there for all to see, the government is not moving fast enough to bring about the general overhaul needed for a modern economy.
Its plan is to set up an agency to take charge of the development and maintenance of the road infrastructure. As expected, the agency will also be tasked with trying to ease traffic congestion through an improvement of the road network.
But is the setting up of an agency the best way to handle the problem? Would it not have been more effective to give local councils adequate funds to at least remain responsible for the maintenance of the roads in their localities? And what has Transport Malta been doing all along?
Most local councils could not do all the work needed because they lacked the necessary funds. Since they know the needs of their localities better than the central government, it is not clear why they should no longer be responsible for road maintenance.
The Finance Minister said that next year would be a learning curve in preparation for 2019 when the road- building capacity would be expected to reach a level enabling the proposed agency to handle a substantial number of road projects annually.
Even so, it has yet to be seen whether the setting up of an agency is the right move. It looks like every time the government faces a difficult problem, it comes up with an agency or an authority. There are already no fewer than six agencies and 17 authorities.
The government needs to cut the talk and concentrate more on action to improve the chaotic road situation now.