I think Malta has too many people for its size.

Getting rid of three quarters of the population will make living on Malta more enjoyable for the ones who remain, even with archaic roads and buildings or public service etc.

I imagine Malta would be more like it was in the 1880s, except people now are not hungry for want of food and they have shoes and mobile phones and hot water and soap and the average life expectancy is not 47 any more.

One knows not to expect anything good coming out of the MLP.

My anger towards the Times is that they exploited the gullible who have traditionally relied on them as a source of balanced opinion.

That no longer holds true.

The level of English has reached new lows as has its editing apart from honest and unbiased opinion.

This is from the article in today’s Times on Line under the heading ‘Leisure Clothing workers tell GWU they never witnessed abuse’.

The body copy has this sentence ‘It said that, inn spite of this, it ouraged the police to continue with their investigations so that if such abuse was really being implemented, those responsible would pay for their actions.’

Stupid and careless mistakes, ‘inn’, ‘outraged the police’

Vera tal-biki, anzi tal-misthija.

What the hell is wrong with that particular newspaper?

I never seen such a one-sided newspaper, and it censors three quarters of contributed decent comments.

What is it hiding and who controls it?

Yes, The Times and the people who contributed to demonize Arriva are to blame. As we say in Maltese….Alla jbierek, killox qaddej fuq ir-rubini….. never a letter to complain about the current service.

Indeed! The national hamalli brigade has taken over and Mizzi seems quite happy with the situation.

Surely bus drivers of this sort are doing a good job of attracting repeat tourist business.

“Secondly, the whole ticketing system was flawed, the bus driver should never be involved in handling cash and distributing tickets. This in itself causes delays.”

Agreed. Now some drivers are issuing those tickets where one has to scratch off time, day, month, etc. The driver does the scratching, adding God knows how much time to a journey that is already overly long due to the insane traffic we have here.

The real idiocy lies in dropping a contract with one operator and then start negotiations with another.

I expect Joe Mizzi, bil-ghaqal, to retort, which is worse.

FACT: The monopoly enjoyed by the hearses and white taxi owners was removed, no mean feat given the types one was dealing with.

FACT: The introduction of the sight seeing tourist buses was opposed by many in the tourist industry who preferred a stutus quo.

FACT: Getting rid of the old belching, bone rattling buses and their uncouth drivers was no mean feat.

FACT: Anyone you care to mention, first amongst them the PL and GWU, criticized the amount of compensation given to the bus owners without taking into consideration that the sum offered was a fraction of what the bus license was worth on the black market.

FACT: Transport Malta held wide consultations with the local councils and NGO’s before issuing the tender documents.Not one of them found any objection or came up with suggestions.

FACT: ARRIVA, a multi national company, with vast experience in public transport, won the tender.
Arriva, I repeat, a MULTI NATIONAL with VAST EXPERIENCE IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT not only accepted the routes, and time frames planned by Transport Malta, but also accepted hefty penalties should it fail to deliver. Clearly it thought that the arrangement was doable and profitable.

FACT: ARRIVA delivered euro 5 engined,air conditioned, low floored ,spacious, mostly brand new buses. Even the much maligned bendy buses gave a great service on the Sliema , Valletta, Airport and Gozo routes and allowed direct accesibility to pushchair and wheelchair users.
ARRIVA replaced the mostly uncouth bus drivers with smart and well mannered young men and women. The only drawback was that they wern’t as ‘assertive’ as their predecessors.

FACT: Things did not go as planned. Transport Malta was to blame for raising expectations and the vastly experienced Arriva was to blame for endorsing Transport Malta’s plan lock stock and barrel.

FACT: Suddenly, when prior to the event no one had doubted that the public transport reform could be successful, the experts that had kept silent all along let fly, led superbly by The Times of Malta, the PL and the Austin Gatt admirers.

FACT: It became obvious that both Transport Malta and Arriva had got it wrong badly and that Arriva could not sustain its financial loses indefinitely.

FACT: There was one solution. To rehash the contract offering Arriva a better deal through an increase in fares and subsidy. With the election round the corner the government was reluctant to take such action.

FACT: In the mean time Arriva was purchased by DEUTCHE BAHN which operates in 130 countries and employs 300,000 people.

This government, instead of negotiating a deal with this giant of a company that by know had become accustomed to the Maltese way of doing things, and must have been prepared to bend backwards to try and salvage some pride, preferred a political solution.

Bottom line is that the PL government has wasted nearly two years running an inferior service that is costing the country many more millions of euro and has still to strike a deal with a hardly known minor Spanish operator that still has to learn the ropes.

What irks is that the PN, conditioned by the negative propaganda onslaught, thought it best not to defend its record during the election campaign and its spokesmen, even today, a find it hard to articulate a good response to unfair criticism.

bob-a-job, I agree with you totally except that I am angry at both The Times and the PL.

Actually to be honest, I am very angry at Joe Mizzi because thanks to his mishandling of public transport, driving has become a nightmare.