The issue of the failed targets concerning the new gas power station by Labour Government is making news. The focus is on the failed target date, yet few have noticed that we have here the issue of two plants. The first one concerns the building of a gas plant by ElectroGas. The second is the conversion of the BWSC plant, which currently runs by heavy fuel oil (HFO) and diesel into one, which will also be working by gas. This job has been entrusted to a Chinese company, the Shanghai Electric Power (SEP).  The main argument here is that both power stations are going to be at Marsaxlokk.

Labour spin doctors are now telling us that dates and targets are no longer important. What is important is the fact that Joseph Muscat's Government is clinging to its promises of producing clean energy for the first time, in Malta.

Latin classifies such types of arguments as contradictio in adjecto; in other words, their arguments are contradictory. An internal contradiction exists between one part of their argument and another part of their same argument. I will explain why.

First, the current power station built by BWSC at Delimara is clean. Emissions are below European level. This is a fact. Secondly, electricity bills have already gone down, or so we are being told. I continue to receive high electricity bills at my home in Marsaxlokk. Irrespective of whether we are receiving reduced bills or otherwise, Government is saying that bills have already been discounted, ergo we do not need a new power station at Marsaxlokk for the sake of having cleaner energy or cheaper bills.

However, if there are those, including Labour spin doctors, who still believe that new power stations are needed so that Marsaxlokk and the rest of Malta can have clean, sustainable and efficient energy, I ask why they want to have these new power stations at Marsaxlokk in the first place? The argument that these two power stations are now covered by a MEPA permit does not hold here.  I am sure that we are still in time to find them a new location. 

Therefore, I am publicly challenging Government to find another location for its new plants. Is there a law somewhere stating that power stations in Malta should be at Marsaxlokk? As the Labour Government and its spin doctors are insisting that the new power stations are going to be clean, there should be no objection to these plants being built elsewhere. For example, why not build the Electro Gas power station next to one of our 5-star hotels? The owners of these hotels should have no problem or objection; they will be having a clean gas plant next to their magnificent 5 star hotels. Like the people of Marsaxlokk and the rest of Malta, they should thank Dr. Joseph Muscat for honouring them with a clean and efficient power station on their doorstep.

But the only reason why power stations, purportedly running on gas, are going to be built at Marsaxlokk is simply because Marsaxlokk is a "Lejber" district and therefore, there will be less opposition. The fact that today Marsaxlokk has some of the best restaurants in Malta and is also the most visited village by tourists in Malta and Gozo is irrelevant.  It follows that if it is right to build new power stations in an area with the highest concentration of topnotch restaurants and an uninterrupted flow of visitors, it should be politically, environmentally and acceptably correct to build these power stations next to one of our 5-Star hotels.

All the arguments of Labour spin doctors will be turned upside down should any of these clean gas power stations be built instead in one of the Nationalist Districts in the North. I can assure my readers that the same Labour spin doctors and bloggers, who are advertising and campaigning to build these gas power stations at Marsaxlokk, will change their tune (or "diska" as we say in Maltese) and will start campaigning fiercely against, maintaining that gas is damaging for our beloved Maltese environment.

Personally, I have no objection for new power stations, provided that they are not in Marsaxlokk. I have no problem to tell our hoteliers to go for the ElectroGas one and accept it next to one of their fabulous leisure buildings, which in any case they built on government land and property.