How about a tunnel to Mars while we’re at it?

Hm. Ok, there’s this theory I’ve been working on for some years now… it involves the inverse proportionality that seems to exist between fantasy and reality in Malta’s political set-up. 

I had toyed with the idea of saving it for some grand old future PhD that would revolutionise political science as we know it… but it’s unlikely I’ll ever exhaust the topic’s limitless possibilities, so I may as well publish my early research here.

Boiled down to a simple formula, it would look like this: the moment reality becomes too uncomfortable for a Maltese government – any Maltese government – it promptly withdraws into a fantasy universe of its own creation. And yes, I know it sounds exactly like what happens to all the rest of us, too (it certainly happens to me, all the time). But there is a significant difference.

When ordinary people such as myself get similarly lost in reverie, someone (or something) will sooner or later pull them back down to earth with a jolt… and often with a reprimand for being ‘too detached from the real world’. 

Yet when politicians resort to fantasy and science fiction as an escape from reality… the rest of the country (for some unaccountable reason) always seems perfectly content to go along for the ride. Never mind that, unlike us lesser mortals, politicians actually have responsibilities towards the reality they are always so keen to avoid… when this category of human being openly abdicates its responsibilities by retreating into the realm of unfettered imagination…  it becomes an example to follow and applaud.

Yesterday’s Budget was a classic case in point… in at least one aspect. Yup, you guessed it. Three years after Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt resuscitated the fantasy project of a ‘tunnel link between Malta and Gozo’… the same old discredited proposal is dug up again by Edward Scicluna: finance minister of a government which had pooh-poohed the idea as a ‘smokescreen’ when still in opposition.

There is something vaguely ominous in this, I think. Even without the benefit of hindsight, we could all see that Gatt’s suggestion, back in 2012, was intended to divert attention from any number of issues that had brought the Nationalist administration to its knees. The timing alone – one year before the next scheduled election – was significant enough. But what cemented the perception of a political ruse was the government’s willingness to declare this unlikely project as ‘doable’… when the only studies carried out to date had all overlooked the one factor that would ultimately decide its feasibility or otherwise. 

In July 2011, Transport Malta appointed Mott Macdonald to carry out a preliminary analysis of road tunnel link options between Malta and Gozo. The study took five months, and its technical, engineering, environmental and economic conclusions were enough for Austin Gatt to declare, a year later, that the idea of a tunnel to Gozo was ‘technically feasible”.

Small problem, however. The same report also admitted that “a detailed geological and geotechnical investigation is still required to determine more precisely the tunnel alignment, tunnel form, cost and construction methodology”. 

Had this investigation been carried out, Mott MacDonald would have discovered the existence of a fault-line in the geological formation of Gozo’s west-east coast (through which all four of its proposed ‘feasible’ tunnel options would have to drill). 

The existence of this fault-line was known to local geologists. Dr Peter Gatt, whose area of expertise is precisely the geology of the Maltese islands, told this newspaper that it was the result of “recent changes in the regional stress field”; and could therefore still be active today.

“Constructing a tunnel through an active fault can produce fatal results,” he added. “Tunnelling though faults increases the possibility of collapse; and if the tunnel is below sea level, that would also entail the risk of flooding.”

Nor was the west-east strike-slip fault the only geological feature to have been overlooked by the Mott MacDonald report. One of the proposed routes, Gatt explained at the time, would also have to tunnel through a stratum of blue clay… which is notoriously unstable for the purpose of excavation. 

Ironically, it transpired that Mott MacDonald had already experienced this hazard first-hand: it was responsible for the construction of the Heathrow Airport Express Underground, which also involved drilling through clay… and which collapsed, with disastrous consequences, in 1994. 

Back in 2012 I remember thinking how odd it was (not to mention irresponsible) for a senior cabinet minister to announce a project as ‘technically feasible’, when none of the relevant technical studies had even been carried out. And that was before factoring in the estimated costs, which would have run into hundreds of millions of euros… at a time when government kept telling us it just didn’t have enough money for other, less ambitious (and infinitely more practical) projects.

So either the word ‘feasible’ had changed meaning while I wasn’t looking… or government simply had no intention of ever embarking on any such project at all. It was merely floating the proposal to give us all something else to talk about for a change, instead of its own many blemishes and warts.

Hence the uncomfortable notion of deja vu today, as the same old transparent ploy is once again sprung upon us by a different government. As indicated earlier: we could all appreciate the reasons why the Gonzi administration might have wanted to distract the population a year before the 2013 election. But what’s the purpose today? What is it, specifically, that the present government hopes to overshadow by means of the same old tired ruse?

Certainly, it cannot be proposing this idea because it genuinely believes a tunnel to Gozo is ‘doable’ and ‘technically feasible’. Edward Scicluna may have declared that the tunnel idea is ‘more economically and environmentally sensible’ than a bridge… but, like Austin Gatt before him, that’s simply not his call to make. And in a remarkable repetition of recent history, it seems the relevant studies still haven’t been conducted three years later.

So far, Scicluna has alluded only to a study conducted by Transport Malta and the Gozo Business Chamber – neither of which is particularly valued for expertise in the field of geology – with the all-important proviso that: “the next step is for the necessary geological studies to be conducted, which should shed light on the technical viability of the possible project…”

Sorry to have to ask at this critical juncture, but… how on earth can Scicluna conclude that a tunnel is more ‘economically sensible’ than a bridge… when the most important cost factor has yet to be decided? The missing geological report can only be expected to confirm realities that are already known to Malta’s geologists: i.e., that a tunnel to Gozo would have to somehow overcome the obstacles of unsuitable terrain and an active fault-line. Even if the study concludes that this is possible to achieve in practice… at what cost? 

The short answer is that… nobody knows. Mott MacDonald didn’t know in 2012, and even said so in its report. Remember? “A detailed geological and geotechnical investigation is still required to determine more precisely the tunnel alignment, tunnel form, COST and construction methodology…”

Transport Malta and the Gozo Business Chamber don’t know either. That’s why the second report is needed… even though, strictly speaking, it should really have come first.

Yet for some obscure, unfathomable reason, both Labour and Nationalist governments have simply refused to acknowledge this very basic reality. Both glibly express their own ‘belief’ that a tunnel is economically feasible… before even waiting to see if this belief is supported by any scientific evidence, and even then, before determining exactly what sort of costs will be involved.

As for my own prognostic: I am willing to place a bet that, if this long-overdue geological study is ever carried out at all, it will conclude that the project is either completely impossible owing to geo-structural problems… or, if doable, would cost roughly the same as your average manned mission to Mars.

In fact, Edward Scicluna may as well have announced his intention to explore the possibility of a tunnel to Mars in his Budget speech last Monday. After all, the relevant studies haven’t been carried out on that one, either. So what’s to stop him from declaring his own personal belief in its feasibility?

Not, mind you, that it really matters in the end. The important thing is that the Labour government, like its predecessor, is already retreating into its private universe of imaginary distractions. And the next election is still a good three years away…