Anything goes

Tony Bezzina, the shadow minister on transport, has questioned the losses experienced in the public transport sector. Perhaps anyone with some sense should suggest to him to keep his big fat gob shut.

Three years ago, Austin Gatt was told that Arriva would lose money and would not make it. He did what he is best at doing – wave his hands up in the air, look the other way and tell everyone around him to f*** themselves. That was “the John Wayne” way.

He was told that for public transport to survive, it would lose money (i.e. taxpayers’ cash had to subsidise a well-serviced operation). He thought otherwise. He was of course wrong.

Now Bezzina is arguing that public transport should make money, or at least not lose any.

Transport minister Joe Mizzi should come to terms with this and turn to his prime minister and inform him that public transport can never be profit-making if it is to be a truly public service provider

But public transport, as the word denotes it, has a public purpose and a service to offer. The truth is that for public transport to be efficient and to offer a decent service, and more importantly, to offer some serious competition to private transportation, it must be consistent, not cut corners and offer a first-class service for so many commuters who count on this normal service to carry on with their daily lives.

That comes with making some losses.

Transport minister Joe Mizzi should come to terms with this and turn to his prime minister and inform him that public transport can never be profit-making if it is to be a truly public service provider.

And that’s pretty much the same way as essential public services, like public broadcasting, cannot be turned into money-making machines.

***

Transport CEO James Piscopo, in a comment to this newspaper, has said that since a grand marine project was an “immediate, realisable opportunity that ought not to be missed”… hey presto! one direct order served up.

He said this to justify why a public quay in Marsa was being awarded to a private company without a call for applications or an expression of interest.

That’s one way of believing in a free market. To argue that a project can simply be “immediate, realisable opportunity” proves to what extent James Piscopo never ran his own business.

Every business dreams of having an immediate and realisable opportunity, but it is usually down to red tape and bureaucracy that many businesses do not get off the ground.

So, in a democracy funded by taxpayers, public procurement regulations are the generally acceptable rules by which businesspeople and taxpayers would like such affairs to be conducted. Fair competition, in a free market, where government gives out the public’s land (or spends its cash) according to rules that guarantee equal participation.

But this story shows how when it comes to public procurement, Piscopo is not only incorrect but plain friggin’ on the wrong side of everything. He simply cannot, as Transport Malta’s grand vizier, decide on his own to give up a public quay.

If Piscopo wishes to facilitate business in the maritime sector, he must ensure that there is a level playing field. But this last decision does not encourage us to think in this way.

If Piscopo wishes to facilitate business in the maritime sector, he must ensure that there is a level playing field. But this last decision does not encourage us to think in this way.

Now, if the PN media machine wishes to take him to task, they have every right to tackle the issue, even though their party lacks the high moral ground. A perfect example of this is the Gaffarena-Sammut business connection. Watch that tumbleweed roll as a deathly silence falls upon us…

Last Sunday, this newspaper revealed the business links between Labour MP, lawyer and MEPA board member Joseph Sammut and Marco Gaffarena, a shareholder in the J GAFF Service Station. Now as we all know, Gaffarena had his petrol station permit sanctioned by MEPA – not the board, where Sammut sits on – but by a subsidiary decision-making body.

Just imagine had this controversial permit been pushed up to MEPA board, the highest decision-making body in the authority. What would he do? Kind of makes you think, especially after that 2011 incident in which a man who referred to himself as ‘Gaffarena’ assaulted former judge Giovanni Bonello in a restaurant, who had firmly opposed the petrol pump permit application while serving as a MEPA board member (Gaffarena patriarch Joe had denied the claims).

The point is, in normal circumstances such links between politics and business would have been scrutinised and dissected by the Opposition. In the past, anyone who had a relationship with Zaren Vassallo was cut to pieces by the Labour opposition.

This time around, contrary to the Nationalist opposition’s good job of keeping the government on its toes, sometimes even casting stones where there is little justification, there is silence on Gaffarena.

Shadow environment minister and the PN’s man on MEPA, Ryan Callus, had little or no words about the Gaffarena-Sammut link. Quite the complete opposite. Indeed, he added that the party could not just issue a press release about everything. Quite rich, considering that political parties issue statements about every little ministerial excrement that takes place.

Which means, and I am saying this because I know what and who the Gaffarena family stand for, there appears to be something that I cannot yet pin down on this whole matter. As I pointed out this silence from the PN, inciting them to make themselves heard in a tweet I sent out, came Jason Azzopardi – the PN’s talibanesque home affairs spokesperson – tweeting that it was a ‘non sequitur’ kind of story.

Which is just as well. When you decide to look the other way and say nothing, then it certainly means something. The truth is that politicians love to pick and choose the issues that suit them best. They do not pick the issues according to the priorities, but only if it suits them.

Which is why it is about time we start talking about the issues that are not mainstream.

***

Much of Malta was fixated this week on the court proceedings against the 23-year-old man accused of murder and assisted suicide of a 15-year-old girl.

From a reporter’s point of view, the proceedings and reporting were “just what the public wanted”, but that is the crude side of men that I really do not like.

The Tanti-Zahra case is an indictment on the secret lives of teenagers and adolescents but perhaps also parents.

If the lawyers representing the family had any sense they would have asked the court to ban reporters from covering the case. The fact that they did not ask for this perhaps shows a certain insensitivity to the reckless commentary that the social media feeds upon.

Since the court hearings were open to the press, we have all decided to offer readers a service. At the very least, a factual service, and one that puts paid to some illusory accusations from critics who expect the media to pick a side, the same people who took the media to task when two years ago, the tragic double-murder in Sliema left everyone wondering what the police were up to.

The Tanti-Zahra case is an indictment on the secret lives of teenagers and adolescents but perhaps also parents, because it reveals a world that is taken over by the instantaneous and vacuous social media world, where teens put themselves up for show for kicks and for no other reason. Many adults are alien to a youth culture that is out there on the fringe, and probably easily misunderstood, perhaps claiming a few victims on the way.

As a parent I myself find it frightening. I see myself as a liberal who is however unable to handle what I am seeing. Short of escaping modern society, we have little option but to educate ourselves on how best to deal with this phenomenon. Society faces a serious problem in understanding the young and their peers and the upcoming generations, and perhaps, in identifying our limitations – where to stop and start reining it all back in.

Suicide is taboo, but we can longer ignore a youth culture that does little to discourage it or treats life with contempt.