There could be a way of reducing the electricity surcharge – but not the way that Dr Sant proposes. Dr Sant’s method is a mixture of reducing inefficiencies and finding ways to subsidise the bill.
That is, if one may be permitted to say so, a very low-tech way of doing it. It is somewhat shaky since, as anyone who listens to number-crunchers can tell you, they always promise you heaven but then deliver the earth. In other words, the expected savings will not be made, or else we find that to cut down the wastage there is (which is there alright) requires far more spending and a change of culture that can never be delivered this side of the millennium.
On the macro-economic side, as this newspaper has consistently argued in the past years, subsidies such as those prospected will distort the impact of the real oil prices, and will therefore not lead to pressure to cut down on consumption.
There is an argument to be made to pass on funds and resources to the people at the lower end of the scale, as Milton Friedman’s suggestion of reverse income tax may mean. But, as the Governor of the Central Bank wisely reminded us, not by providing (again) a loophole that will then be used by all and not just by those who really need it.
However, there is a way that can help reduce the surcharge and, more importantly, reduce Malta’s dependence on imported oil. Malta may have no natural oil or hydro-electric power, and it uses a rather high percentage of its electricity output to produce water, but it does have one or two things in abundance – sun and wind.
Look at the Burgenland province in Austria to see how other people do it. The stated policy for this province is to render itself autonomous of oil imports in 10 years’ time.
It is doing this with a whole raft of policies, not least the installation of a multitude of wind farms, by encouraging practical ways of cutting down on waste and instilling energy consciousness in one and all, and so on. The presence of wind farms does not seem to have worried the countryside folk, but here in Malta it has been relegated to the far future because it will have to be done out at sea and out of sight (hence increasing the cost) while other smart guys argue that no wind energy is cheaper than oil-fuelled energy.
Other energy saving suggestions have been made (and also some energy-producing ideas) but they have all been turned down by a government intent only on doing things its way and no other way.
The ordinary citizen finds himself between a rock which states “You shall do things as I tell you”, and a hard place which suggests cutting down on a surcharge in the most retrograde and doomed to failure way.