The government-owned land on which the new gas-fired power station will be built should have been leased to the Electrogas consortium for at least “a few million” per year according to property experts, the shadow minister for Energy Marthese Portelli told Parliament this evening.
Instead, the government had leased it to the consortium for "peanuts," she said.
Yesterday, The Malta Independent on Sunday reported that the consortium building the new power station has been leased a total of 19,275 square metres (equivalent to almost three football fields) for €224,553 per annum.
The Consortium has been given a 50 per cent ‘subsidy’ for the first 18 months of the lease.
Dr Portelli said that instead of imposing fines on the consortium for not respecting the March 2015 deadline, the government is offering the contractor a discount.
She said Enemalta workers are still being left in the dark about their future, and it was only thanks to the Opposition that the government shared the full list of redeployment opportunities available to them.
Prior to the Opposition’s intervention, the list of vacancies was only made available to the General Workers’ Union, she said.
Dr Portelli pointed out a number of anomalies in the list of vacancies.
She questioned how Enemalta workers can apply for positions such as support line operators, social support workers, psychologists, nurses and notaries.
On diesel and petrol prices in Malta, Dr Portelli said the country has the eighth and 11th highest prices in the EU.
Back in 2011, Dr Muscat had kicked up a fuss when these prices were the 14th and 15th highest in the EU, Dr Portelli said.
“Everybody remembers Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi telling the Opposition that it does not know what it is on about. Everybody remembers Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi saying that they could not lower petrol and diesel prices due to a hedging agreement that was valid until March.
"Today we know that this was a lie. Today we know that they tried to stop us from speaking out on the matter. It is not true that they could not lower prices until March. The Opposition was right, and prices have come down.”
Dr Portelli said that by her calculations the government overcharged consumers by €10.5 million.
Although fuel prices have now been lowered, the government “forgot” to say that Malta still has some of the highest prices in the EU.
She accused the Prime Minister of trying to deviate attention from the Cafe’ Premier scandal by announcing a 3 cent drop in fuel prices.
“It is no wonder that in announcing this drop in prices, Dr Muscat did not call a press conference like he had when prices were reduced by 2 cents. Instead, he went to a Labour club in order to have the support of Labour activists,” Dr Portelli said.