Far from electrifying or illuminating, last Wednesday, the House debated the Energy Sector Cooperation and Investment Agreement. The Agreement was signed by representatives of Enemalta plc, Shanghai Electric Power Co Ltd, SEP (Malta) Holdings and the Government of the Republic of Malta on 12 December 2014.

The multi-million Euro agreement is mirrored in 15 pages. The 15 page agreement is divided into six sections. Investment, Delimara Operation, Governance of the Companies, Notices, Confidentiality and Originals. 

To better understand what was debated in the House last Wednesday, it is pertinent to bring to your attention that the current Collective Agreement for Employees in the Public Sector for the period 1 January 2011 – 31 December 2016 is a 23 page document with 17 clauses, excluding the wage increases tables. This collective agreement is far more comprehensive than the one tabled in the House.

Nonetheless, when putting these two agreements next to each other and deciphering their financial value, impact, implications, obligations and responsibilities, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the tabled agreement is obscure and raises more questions than it answers.

The tabled Energy Sector Cooperation and Investment Agreement is a hoc-poc synopsis of the complete Agreement. The complete and detailed Agreement was not tabled.  Had Government secured an advantageous and favourable deal, the marketing arm engaged by Government would have fully utilised the contents of the Agreement to overshadow various shortcomings that have severely dented Government’s credibility during the past months.

Section six, with the heading ‘Originals,’ was under the scrutiny of the House like the rest of the clauses in the tabled agreement. But before you continue to read, I ought to warn you to take a deep breath. The clause reads as follows: - “This Agreement is signed in four originals, each having the same legal effect. Each of the Parties holds one original”. Unfortunately, where each party to the agreement shelves or hides this agreement is not specified in this clause; however, I am certain you can counsel wisely our Government where to hide this agreement.

But, back to the body of the agreement, out of the 15 pages, the first page is the cover page. Page two and three identify the purpose of the Agreement and name the persons representing the Organisations and their respective offices address. The last page of the agreement is reserved for signatures. In any case, there is nothing much to debate in these four pages.

In a nutshell, the rest of the pages – 11 in all – lacked the necessary information and were deficient on a number of counts. This very raw and abridged version of the complete agreement is a serious insult to the persons sitting on the opposition benches, an offence to the general public and an affront to trade unions.

The Leader of the Opposition, Simon Busuttil, amplified on the lack of transparency and was well-positioned to drive home his message. He left no stone unturned and questioned Government on many issues related to the Agreement. He urged Government to reduce fuel prices, which are currently very high compared to other EU countries. He did so with vigour and passion.

On the other hand, the Prime Minister opened the debate with some bold statements, all related to the past and the sorry state of the financial situation of Enemalta. However, few were the comments relating to the partial privatisation of Enemalta. He avoided going into the merits of the tabled agreement.

While, understandably, commercially sensitive issues should be protected, Government cannot be justified in keeping under wraps matters of national interest. This brings me to a point that was raised during the debate by various Ministers. Ministers claimed that various international credit rating agencies have improved Malta’s credit rating on the basis of this agreement. I do hope that the international credit rating agencies improved Malta’s credit rating on reading the tabled agreement.

The tabled agreement fails to refer to workers’ rights and interests. Indeed, there are no sacred cows but this must have irked the trade unions, although as yet, publicly, they have remained silent, except for some sporadic, strongly-worded press releases.

 

The agreement for the new power generation house is lacking on too many fronts, including but not exclusively, good governance.