This week’s 11th-hour parliamentary debate on the Delimara power extension, a project that has proved highly controversial for more than one reason, was the right debate held at the right time.

Although it must be stated that a debate on the issue should have been held months ago – and the Opposition leader’s call for such a debate that he has been making since September should have been acceded to a long time ago – on an issue that has raised concern across the country, would have been far more preferable.

The exercise in hand would have been a far easier one if the objective was to find fault with the way in which the debate was virtually strong armed through the House on Wednesday, the night before the Malta Environment and Planning Authority was due to decide on the matter.

Yes, Mepa needs to have its clear-cut independence and Parliament should not be attempting to influence its decisions. But, it must be noted, the project is indeed of great national significance and importance.

This is just the type of issue that needs to be debated, and debated thoroughly, by the country’s lawmakers, and the government’s refusal to do so, despite numerous calls from the Opposition, leaves a number of questions unanswered.

As the Opposition leader said in the debate, no one was saying that Mepa should not be allowed to decide freely on the application, but that did not mean that Parliament could not express itself on the issue.

This newspaper would go a step further by agreeing that Mepa must have a free hand in its decision making process, but at the same time Parliament absolutely must express itself on the matter. It should have done that months ago when the Opposition had called for the debate.

This newspaper has not always agreed with the Opposition’s political and parliamentary tactics, such as the focus on irregular migration during last summer’s MEP election and the way the same issue was debated so poorly in Parliament at the urgent behest of the Opposition.

That the Opposition would seek to gain political mileage from the issue, as it has from others, is undeniable. That is, after all, the very nature of politics. But when the need for political mileage crosses paths with genuine concern for a country’s citizens, it is the latter interest that overrides the former.

Mepa on the one hand had decided to hold its hearing on the development application before an investigation into corruption claims was finalised by the Office of the Auditor General, the Opposition leader pointed out when calling for the debate, but, he added, the government had ironically refused to hold a debate in Parliament on the issue before the Auditor General concluded the report.

At risk of blurring the demarcation line between the government and Mepa, it has to be observed that this is a simple case of two weights and two measures.

The Opposition leader was also quite correct to point out that the Auditor General’s report could influence Mepa’s decision, and by the same token the government argued that a parliamentary debate on the subject could sway Mepa’s decision. But that appears not to have happened.

From the still ongoing corruption investigation into the somewhat dubious use of heavy fuel oil, to the type of technologies to be used by the winning bidder, to the amount of toxic waste that will be generated by the extension’s chosen technology – there is still a lot to be discussed both within as well as outside Mepa’s remit.

There is no doubt that those areas outside Mepa’s remit needed to be ironed out before the authority sat down to decide on the application, even though the decision taken this week was for what the government has played down as a mere outline development permit.

Yes, the country needs to replace the energy source that is the Marsa power station so that it could be closed down in the near future in line with European Union directives, as well as address the very serious and valid health concerns the archaic installation has caused and is still causing to this day. But the argument forwarded by the government that the Opposition is attempting to scuttle the plans for its decommissioning fails to hold water.

On a separate yet related note, this newspaper has been accused in the recent past of having toed the government line with respect to the Delimara power station extension, accusations, we must point out, that are completely unfounded.

The accusations followed an article carried two weeks ago in which we reported, we stress, reported, a letter sent by one of the company implicated in the Opposition’s claims of corruption in the tendering process to the Malta Resources Authority, in which it sought to explain itself out of the corruption claims levelled at it by the Opposition.

But those who levelled such accusations at us failed to take into account previous articles carried by this same newspaper, and written by the same journalist, reporting both sides of the story accurately. They are also guilty of reading far too much into the report and have judged this newspaper by their own standards, that is, of lining the article with hidden agendas and what have you.

That is not, and never will be, this newspaper’s practice.

This newspaper stands against that which is against the public interest, and against injustice in favour of unchecked development, as well as developments that serve little other purpose than to line developers’ pockets at the expense of the citizen.

When it comes to the environment, that is and will remain this newspaper’s ethos – nothing more, nothing less.