Grand promises, murky waters: The €700 million road to nowhere

In December 2017, then-Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects Ian Borg announced with great fanfare that €700 million would be invested in a seven-year project to upgrade all of Malta’s residential roads.

Infrastructure Malta pledged “the rebuilding of each street” including “the replacement or reinforcement of existing foundations, upgrading of existing pavements or building new ones and the laying of new asphalt surfaces”.

Infrastructure Malta also claimed it would be “collaborating with the entities that have underground water, electricity or telecommunications distribution networks… so they can be replaced and reinforced as part of this project”.

Those seven years are almost up.  Those €700 million have gone.  But look at our streets and weep.

I walk to work and back every day through those streets that by now should have been “upgraded”.  In several of them, there are deep open trenches filled with rubble, dust and rubbish.  Those trenches have been left open for weeks. The promised coordination between contractors was some sick joke.

The only protection from falling into those trenches is some bright orange netting.  Owners of garages on those streets have had large metal plates placed over those deep trenches to allow them to use their garages.

The pavement has been destroyed on one side of one street, and the one on the other side is in such a state that you need a change of shoes and clothing after you walk through.

But it’s not just the back streets.  Many main roads show no hint of any upgrade, either.  After a short rain shower, dirty water filled potholes and collected on the side of one of those main roads, with nowhere for the water to drain.  Vehicles driving down the road soaked pedestrians with stagnant brown water while they tried to navigate the uneven pavement.

Right at the start of summer, Xlendi Bay in Gozo turned brown after a few hours of rainfall.  All the dust, mud, gravel and rubbish left in the streets on higher ground was carried down into the bay.

Xlendi Bay was declared off-limits for swimmers on 20 June – the eve of the new summer season. The Water Services Corporation (WSC) issued a statement reassuring the public that the brown water was just “stormwater runoff” and not a sewage leak, despite the stench that accompanied it.

They claimed the rainwater had “overwhelmed stormwater culverts in the area and eventually emptied into the sea”.  Those culverts were full of building debris, stones and other rubbish.  WSC didn’t tell us when those culverts were last cleared.

The corporation simply added that this was “typical” of low-lying coastal areas during heavy rainfall.  It certainly is typical if the roads and streets are filled with construction debris, and the roads are kept dug up for weeks. It’s certainly typical if the roads that should by now have been upgraded have no culverts at all, and if the few that do have culverts, they’re completely choked with so much rubbish.

How many of the roads that have been upgraded in recent years have any culverts for water drainage?

With impeccable timing, on the very day that Xlendi Bay turned brown and was closed to swimmers until further notice, Gozo’s star minister, Clint Camilleri, was launching his “Summer in Gozo” programme aimed at “boosting tourism”. He bragged that Gozo’s tourism sector continues to register strong growth.

“I am convinced by the strategy we are adopting,” he said, “which is bearing fruit because we are focusing more on quality tourism and therefore giving our visitors added value”.

Exceptional added value – one of the handful of tourist spots on Gozo turned into a morass of muddy detritus with streets that cannot be crossed except by boat.  If it’s an adventure holiday you’re after, Xlendi is the place to go.

But Gozo wasn’t alone in offering “added value” to the public and tourists.  Just two days earlier, on 18 June, swimming at Sliema’s Chalet and Qui-si-sana area was banned.  This time, the suspiciously stinky brown liquid pouring into the sea was indeed sewage.

That was confirmed by the Environmental Health Directorate, although that was hardly necessary – floating excrement could be seen happily gliding down to the shore.  The directorate issued a statement: “The foul water could affect bathing water quality and pose a health risk to swimmers.”  You don’t say.

They posted warning signs in the affected area, which extended from the Sliema water polo pitch to the opposite end of the bay in Qui-si-Sana.  They reassured the public that they “will continue to monitor the situation and follow up on the case.” But “the ban will remain in place until water quality is confirmed to be safe”.

Well, we can’t complain.  You could always walk along the coast and swim in Font Għadir, where the water was sparkling clean. Sadly not.  On 20 June, just two days later, the Environmental Health Directorate issued another statement advising against swimming in the Font Għadir area. This time, they blamed “contaminated water that was discharged from a stormwater culvert, which reached the sea”.

The Environmental Health Officers, we were told, were investigating the source of contamination, ominously adding “the duration of the contamination cannot be predicted at this stage.”  Again, temporary warning signs were put up in the affected area, highlighting some real “added value”.

For parents in the area, they could always take their children to play at the George Bonello de Puis gardens near the Chalet area. Oh, no. That’s been closed with metal barriers for many months now.

On 2 May 2024, MIDI bragged that it had invested €160,000 to refurbish the gardens and install four large play structures, an accessible merry-go-round, an enclosed fenced area for young children and safety flooring for all four play areas.  Now it lies abandoned and sealed off.

The same applies to the Tigne’ Point Belvedere walkway, which was fenced off in October 2024.  Does that count as “added value” too?