Starving serfs in SUVs
Twanny Bronka he hef di brillyint idea wid di udder people munny.
I could barely get home late this morning. The traffic was clogged from the Rabat road all the way down to the St Paul’s Bay bypass.
It’s quite usual to have a backlog of traffic down Burmarrad on a sunny Sunday, though I always wonder where all those people are going – are they all having lunch in Qawra and Bugibba? But today was something else and it wasn’t lunchtime anyway.
Then I remembered: it’s travel-free-on-the-Gozo-ferry weekend, tenks to di Twanny Bronka. And is he paying for all those tickets himself, using a chunk of his Eur800,000+ bank loan and his Eur23,000 salary?
No, he isn’t. Nor is Gozo Channel running a charity operation. The government giveth, and the government taketh away with the other hand. The free weekend has cost Gozo Channel a quarter of a million euros, and the government is going to use tax money to reimburse the company. So basically, that trip you took wasn’t free at all.
In any case, what struck me was the crush and the pointlessness of it. These people were all – by definition – in cars. Many of them were in SUVs. How starving could they be, that they had to wait for a free ferry pass to go to Gozo for the day, along with 20,000 other people, and spend half the day in a queue of traffic and a queue waiting to get on board?
The boarding queue snaked right up the hill and back. Sounds like a terrific day out to me – perfect hell.
The starving masses – did they actually eat in restaurants, or did they take packed lunches and a Thermos flask with them, seeing that that apparently can’t afford the ferry tickets and must wait until they’re free?
This kind of thing is insane. Now not only are their snouts in the trough, but they’re stopping to breathe long enough to chuck some of the swill at the rest of us.
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Typical lejberonomics…and if you read the gushing ‘thank you to Joseph taghna’ comments on Times of Malta for giving them a free ride to Gozo you’d think that he is the second salvatur ta’ Malta.
Really where were these people living in the past 22 years….on Mars? Brainwashed to the point of despair.
Top marks for “Lejberonomics”.
I thought it was an awful idea, but hey, Gozo was buzzing with economic activity, so that’s all that matters, right?
Well, this how at least one staunch Labourite attempted to justify this brilliant scheme on Facebook; without producing any evidence whatsoever, of course. As you’ve correctly pointed out, I would hardly be surprised to find out that most commuters took with them packed lunches, given the free-loading mentality that’s so prevalent in this country, or the number of families who are financial dire straits – who wouldn’t normally be able to afford a ticket, never mind a meal at a restaurant or a café.
I just don’t see how a free trip to Gozo would compel anyone to spend money. If anyone was planning on going to a restaurant or any other establishment, they would have done so in Malta instead.
Hence, there was really no net increase in revenue generated; though I stand to be corrected.
Bottom line: I believe it’s done far more harm than good to our economy, and I’ve excluded the inconvenience caused by the traffic congestion.
I might be going out of point here, but what we have here is another instance of Labour’s short-sightedness and myopia.
Contrast this complimentary boat ride with the PN’s – ahem – roadmap, which managed to attract more and more visitors to Gozo year after year, by reconstructing arterial roads, restoring historical places of interest, new and improved terminals and much, much more.
The latter vision has benefited everyone and will continue to rake in visitors for many years to come. Now, what’s Labour’s master plan for Gozo?
The government will be paying for those Eur250 “Big Ones” from the budget of the Ministry for Gozo.
According to Giovanna Debono there have been a number of significant cuts in the Gozo budget.
I always thought of Gozo as a place to get away from most of the masses.
This is really mad, spending half a day in the queue just to save 30 euros for a full car.
“Gozo et circenses” – go on, swallow the bait again, you gullible zombies.
Vera wertit. Prosit tal-inizjattiva u tal-ideja. how desperate for a freebie do you have to be to spend hours in a queue, having to get out of your car and chat with strangers in the other cars just to while away the time?
People in this country will take anything that’s free, even if it isn’t enjoyable.
From timesonline:
Updated 6 p.m.
A queue of cars stretching from Mgarr, past Ghajnsielem and Xewkija and on to Victoria in Gozo has built up as hundreds of people wait to return to Malta after benefiting from Gozo Channel’s free weekend – and glorious weather.
The ferries have been operating free of charge since Friday but many opted to go to Gozo this morning, and a double lane queue in the morning blocked the road from Marfa to Cirkewwa.
This evening, three lanes of the road down from Ghajnsielem to Mgarr were taken up by the queueing cars, leaving just one uphill lane. People spent hours chatting outside their cars, anxiously looking at their watches.
The free service will continue throughout the night.
The free travel to Gozo initiative will cost taxpayers more than €250,000 as the Government will refund the costs incurred by the ferry company.
The aim of the initiative was to attract visitors and boost the economy of Gozo during this time of year when business is traditionally slow.
The ferries are being operated on a shuttle service.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131117/local/long-queue-in-cirkewwa-ferry-no-charge-weekend-to-cost-taxpayers-250000.495071#.UokxWBG9KSM
Imagine them talking about their Gozo trip today Monday: fabulous, good idea, went for free, even if we did spend half the day queuing up it was ‘worthed’, kellhom bzonn jergu jaghmluha xi pjacir hadna.
If it’s part of conditioning the Labour masses to the new bridge that they seem to want to push through with, the cost of this weekend can be posted to advertising and communication.
It seems that this bridge is a very serious objective of either China or Joseph and that one ridiculous act is merely going to follow the other.
Unless we get organised with serious protests he is just going to steamroll over us and change the face of Malta.
They should all resign en masse over their sale of citizenship scam.
However much I thought only days ago that a permanent link is what Gozo needed, now that I have lived through this free-for-all weekend I just wish that Gozo becomes even less accessible to the masses.
U ijjwa. 250,000 ewro x’hinhuma. Anqas minn nofs passaport.
Government seems to be spending the money before earning it !
Yes, I can confirm a large number of people were seen everywhere with packed lunches and desserts. What is the sense of coming to Gozo by car when one road leads to everywhere. Ridiculous.
I have a gut feeling that during the past weekend most if not all eateries on Gozo managed to offload all the food that had a fast approaching USE BY DATE
“Clever” way to fool the people and to say thanks to the Gozitans for helping him to power. A weekend of economic activity to make up for budget cuts. Big well done to all those applauding. I’m willing to bet that during the next 4 and a half years you won’t be seeing much else.
U ejja, nofs miljun x’inhuma, nofs il-flus li kellu Mallia fil-kexxun.