Political parties should tell the truth to the people about their rights on a natural gas pipeline running on the continental shelf and stop using oil drilling as an electoral gimmick, said Azzjoni Nazzjonali leader Josie Muscat yesterday. During the party’s first political activity since the official start of the electoral campaign, Dr Muscat said the government should shed light over whether it had given its go ahead to Italy to lay a gas pipeline across Malta’s continental shelf and whether it had brokered some sort of compensation.
Dr Muscat explained how Italian energy companies ENI and AGIP had struck an agreement with Libya’s NOC to install a gas pipeline that would pump Liquefied Natural Gas from Mellita in West Libya to the Sicilian city of Gela. It was pointed out that the pipe would pass some 12 miles off San Dimitri Point in Gozo.
Quoting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) III, Dr Muscat said that a country must seek another country’s consent if it wants to pass a pipeline through its continental shelf. He added that “in 1977, Tunisia brokered an agreement with Italy to receive 5.625 per cent of LNG, in kind or in cash, that was being pumped from Algeria into pipelines passing through the Tunisian continental shelf. That means Tunisia has been netting over EUR93.17million (Lm40million) a year.” Dr Muscat explained that 8.5 billion cubic metres of LNG are pumped each year from Algeria to Italy while 10 billion cubic metres are pumped each year from Libya to Italy.
“While countries lying in the Mediterranean basin are thriving on oil exploration, Malta lies desperately in need of fuel and every time an election comes, an oil exploration deal is struck,” said the AN leader. Yet, he said, no oil has been found after over 40 years of drilling, even though studies show that Malta lies on top of an oil reserve.
Dr Muscat stated that the surcharge issue has been turned into a political football by the two main parties. He said the fuel-related price issue would be easily tackled were the government to decide to reduce importation tax. He said the government actually made money out of fuel price hikes as it gained more VAT which it imposed on Enemalta. “However, the government has never dared reveal this to the people,” said Dr Muscat.
The AN leader said the Maltese deserved an explanation whether Malta has given its consent to the pipeline to be laid on its continental shelf and whether it had ceded its rights.
He called for a complete overhaul in the country’s way of doing policy and make do of the two parties that had dominated the local political scene for the past 50 years. He accused them of trashing the country’s bargaining power while acknowledging that it only had human resources.