Azzjoni Nazzjonali leader Josie Muscat yesterday filed a judicial protest against the Prime Minister, the Rural Affairs and Environment Minister, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, and the waste management company WasteServ.

On the eve of elections, he said, the Prime Minister and his Environment Minister had “turned green and have become environmentalists”.

Those who had ignored the pleas of Marsascala residents, and who are still refusing to say what the Mepa auditor’s report on the waste recycling plant said, were today telling the Maltese that together they could achieve.

Achieve what, he wondered. At Marsascala they had been lumped with the fish farms and the stench of waste. This administration had totally neglected the people of Marsascala, Dr Muscat said.

He wondered how Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Environment Minister George Pullicino had declared that a section of the waste recycling plant would start operating these days, when there were two appeals pending against Mepa, and two cases in court, one of them constitutional, the other civil.

He also asked why it was only now that the Mepa CEO had admitted that a mistake had been made in measurements when they were seeking alternative sites instead of Marsascala.

The Prime Minister, Dr Muscat added, had refused to conduct an analysis of the recycling plant’s impact on health, because it would have been very expensive. But then he had not hesitated to be profligate in the building of a hospital which reeks of corruption.

Only those who were blind believed in Dr Gonzi and Mr Pullicino, Dr Muscat said.

The waste recycling plant which has been built at Marsascala has outdated technology, he claimed.