Ever anxious to attack the government, the Labour Party’s spokesmen for the environment were giving the green light to the abusive behaviour of Carmel Cacopardo, in publishing a report which the Ombudsman had advised should not be published, the Rural Affairs and the Environment Ministry said yesterday

The Labour spokesmen failed to answer pertinent questions. They did not, for instance, say what they thought about the Labour government’s 1996-98 plans to treat all Malta’s waste at the Sant’Antnin plant. Nor do they say why the Labour Party had never objected to the 2001 national strategy on waste management, which also laid down that the Sant’Antnin plant would treat all the country’s waste.

They also did not refer to what the Labour leader, Alfred Sant, had said in October, 2005, at a meeting with the Front Kontra Sant’Antnin, that he believed that the plant could be modernised, but not expanded. This was exactly what the government had done, and the Labour Party had objected to.

The Labour spokesmen had found fault with the presence of the minister at meetings held by WasteServe with the MEPA when the plant’s modernisation was discussed. But this was a government project, so the government had to keep itself updated; and the minister was responsible for the implementation of the national waste strategy.

Mr Cacopardo’s partisan motives became clear when it was considered that he had been in possession of the report for about the year, but had chosen to publish it now, during an electoral campaign which he was contesting in the district where the waste treatment plant was situated, the ministry said.