Cheats and hoodwinkers update: the Eur23 million annual bus subsidy is just the start
The government told us (under the equivalent of medieval torture) that it will be giving Autobuses de Leon 23 million euros a year in subsidy.
But yesterday we discovered through testimony in court that these 23 million euros a year are just the start and that the annual subsidy will rise according to how Autobuses de Leon (which has the government by the short-and-curlies) deems fit and appropriate.
And nobody wants to complain about it because they feel like right and proper idiots, having made all that fuss about Arriva only to end up in this mess thanks to the incompetents they elected.
One just has to ask the question using the term deployed by Labour plant Nicola Abela Garrett in its anti-Arriva/anti-Austin-Gatt campaign: Who are the real f**king w**kers now?
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The level of incompetence is staggering, in every sector. “Gas down gol-hajt” was a premonition not a slogan.
The Drydocks were an absolute steal it seems.
Why does the government need to amortise this arrangement?
Whose interests have been catered for?
By Labour standars, if she didn’t get a substantial iced bun for accepting to be the court jester, she must certainly be pitied.
Who, at her age, would want all and sundry that he did not even understand what a f**king w**ker is? Joe Mizzi’s antics have shown her up haven’t they?
This public transport affair is turning into another exercise in deception and equivocation.
In the first year Autobouses de Leon will receive a subsidy of €23 million but they will not be operating all routes. The PM is skipping this little detail: the new contractor will only take on some routes. We don’t know how many and which ones; presumably they will be the routes making a profit.
Meanwhile, Transport Malta will have to continue operating the other routes and making losses. These losses, probably running into millions, should be added to the €23 million to calculate the real cost to the government.
Joseph Muscat tried to make us think that having the contractor start operating only some routes was a brainwave. No big bangs, he said, but a gradual take-over so as not to repeat the errors of the Arriva experience. The comparison is false: in the case of Arriva the routes were changed drastically and suddenly and the conservative public failed to cope. This time, practically no changes are envisaged, so there should be no difficulty with Autobuses de Leon operating all routes from the first day.
The real reason for the gradual introduction of the new contractors is so that they can pick and choose the profit-making routes, leaving Transport Malta stuck with the rest. In the second year, when Autobuses de Leon start operating all routes, their subsidy will be much higher, though we haven’t been told exactly by how much.
Excellent analysis. You are so right.
I would add that the removal of bendy buses is a main reason, but not the only one, why us the taxpayers are and will be forking out so much money.
Why on earth is the state still subsidising public transport in 2014?
Why don’t commuters pay for the service they get in full?
Why should persons who don’t use the bus pay for those who use it?
Why should persons who have been registering as unemployed for years be supported by honest taxpayers’ money. That is also the question.
They really have no problem spending other people’s money, but when it comes to spending their own, Manuel Mallia shops at Lidl, takes water from a public fountain and switches his ID card to Gozo to save on the ferry fare, and Joseph Muscat rents his own car to the government and carries on using it.
This is absolutely disgraceful. With that kind of subsidy, Arriva with a two-year Maltese experience under its belt, would have by now been well on its way in providing decent public transport.
Instead we are stuck with this little-known company that has to start from scratch.