If there is one good thing in Maltese politics it is that there is never a dull moment.

With the Gonzi government at the helm that can almost be guaranteed.

So much so that many Nationalists and former Nationalists who felt that they were in ‘safe hands’ under EFA’s premiership feel badly let down by the present administration, irrespective of the quantum of solace the PM might choose to offer to the disgruntled and the sidelined Nationalist MPs.

Last week the PM managed to stir up the anger of environmentalists and hunters alike, for the slapdash manner in which he tackled the spring season hunting issue, inspite of all the attendant baggage of his, Simon Busuttil’s and RCC’s pre-electoral promises.

While Malta prepares itself to welcome His Holiness The Pope, a visit that I sincerely hope will prove to be successful – particularly, given the amount of effort that the President of the Republic has put into it, as well as the unstinting efforts of the local Church authorities and the organising committee, nobody can accuse me of cynicism in claiming that one would have augured for better times for Malta to maximise the full benefit of such a visit. Coming as it does at a time of turbulence within the Church, with institutional newspapers and magazines like Newsweek, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel and The Economist using very harsh words towards the Church authorities over its communications strategy and media handling of the paedophilia issues as well as towards the numerous victims of sexual abuse, one genuinely hopes that once the Pope will arrive in our midst he will manage to revive a good measure of the spiritual well being that the previous two successful visits by Pope John Paul II had generated amongst the Maltese and Gozitans alike. On this issue I am an optimist and hope that everything will work out well as expected and hoped for. Even more so that the visit itself will prove to be a catalyst for the much needed healing process that the Church needs to promote pro-actively in order to bolster its role effectively anew, within society. The media reports that separated MPs were asked to keep their partners away from Pontifical Mass were to the best of my knowledge not adopted during the previous two Papal visits. Even were this to be the case, will the same ‘vetting’ take place regarding resident diplomats ‘living in sin’ or engaged in gay marriage? This surely tarnishes even further the Church’s already tattered image of inclusivity.

On the political front things could have hardly worked out worse for this administration during the past days, irrespective of the gate keeping that went on to try and minimise the blows that impacted heavily on its long tarnished image and truly shattered credibility.

On the power cuts issue, Government was not just merely reactive but as various editorials in the independent media made it clear, government’s statements were nothing but admissions of failure, while others correctly concluded that thanks to the statement issued by the new Energy Minister – we now have it from the horse’s mouth – that Enemalta is in an even bigger mess than we had thought.

From generation problems we have also moved to generation management problems, only to find out that against all long established norms and practices government expected us to accept a management report to highlight management deficiencies.

During my short stint being responsible for the Corporation, I had always insisted on independent enquiries by people without any existing Enemalta links or ties, whenever power cuts took place.

The main reason given for the Good Friday power cut was that Enemalta did not have enough stand-by power to meet a demand in surge. At the time of writing I am still awaiting the Ministry’s announcement of what could have led to such a surge when we are still in a relatively low season, and Good Friday is known for its reduced demands on electricity consumption – as a rule.

It would be also interesting to find out if Enemalta has any remote resetting of substations, since I suspect that if this is not the case, this could explain why it invariably takes so long to have each sub station switched on again following every nation wide power cut.

But there is one important point that many seem to have missed. And this is that the report that government commissioned requested an increase of excess output from 5 to 10MW, thus implying that the amount of excess power is not just an internal Enemalta decision but that it could have been imposed on it from above. Arguably, or presumably from the Ministry itself.

If this is indeed the case, then the power cut was therefore not due to plant failure, or as implied, operational error, but to policy decisions.

I do not envy Tonio Fenech, since these atrocious and repeated power cuts have come at a time when he understandably wants to show one and all – the PM included – that he can do a better job than Austin Gatt. If anything to justify the recent cabinet switch in portfolios.

There are other factors that are bothering many experts.

The Electricity Generation Plan of 2006 (2006-2015) had long made it clear in not so diplomatic language that unless the necessary forward planning and investment took place, we risked severe power outages by 2010.

Another important point we cannot afford to gloss over is that although arguably, Enemalta’s Electricity Generation Plan (ECG) should also be backed up by a National Energy Plan for Malta, we are still lumped with a draft energy plan and from what I was told in Parliament, given that the Plan is still subject to an SEA (a Strategic Environment Assessment) that will not be completed before the Fall of 2010, it is most unlikely that we shall have a formal National Energy Plan for Malta in place before November of this year at the earliest – yet another 7-8 months.

Experts have been quick to point out that although logic would have dictated that the Malta-Sicily grid should have been brought to fruition in tandem with the extension of the power station at Delimara – even were we to ignore for a moment the heavily polluting heavy fuel oil aspect – without sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I tend to agree with all those who seem to have the feeling that the BWSC solution is being pushed faster than the Gonzi-promoted interlink with Italy.

Many are still doubtful, whether irrespective of Austin Gatt’s past ‘reassurances’ the mentioned datelines will be honoured and respected.

Maltese will find very little reassurance in the media blitz being orchestrated on TV, radio and in the printed press by Enemalta to ‘justify’ its efforts, a futile exercise that is being carried out at taxpayers’ expense.

Italy itself is a net importer of electricity, Sicily is known for its various power outages, and we would still need to agree with Italy over permitting and the cost of using their infrastructure for access to the European grid. While these negotiations may be underway they could take months, while the cable laying process is not something that can be carried out in a couple of weeks.

While we have come across knowledgeable articles in the independent press we learnt that Malta’s renewables’ strategy was virtually put on ice, while the EU performed more than a mere song and dance to remind us that the European Commission had already initiated legal action against Malta with regard to emission levels at the Delimara power plant.

Which brings us finally to the Bondi+ saga. I often refer jokingly to this programme amongst friends as Bla Agenda since my friend Lou Bondi likes reminding one and all that he tries to be as impartial as possible.

I will not go into the merits of the programme in question, but it takes some cheek to have the producer of the weekly PBS programme reacting the way he did – urging BA board members to publicly declare their position, trying to reassure us that his programme was balanced simply because 38% of questions asked to the Deputy PM addressed problems among the backbenchers of the government (when it was common knowledge that they were already way ‘on the mend’), and that the BA should not have acted because no formal protests had been filed by the PL.

The claim that the questions asked to Tonio Borg were ‘hard hitting’ were the butt of many a joke amongst us parliamentarians when the House was still in session.

The ‘threat that this would not stop here’ gives one the impression – rightly or wrongly – that WE are running PBS rather than the latter farming out air time to the former.

I can very well understand NET TV coming to the defence of Mr Bondi, since as many argued, who needs NET TV when you have WE, but this aura of arrogance which reminds me of The Untouchables, is simply not on in this day and age. PBS’s knee jerk reaction (coupled with the highly politically charged statement on TV by their editorial board chief) that they are considering taking the case to the Constitutional Court, will still not mitigate the fact that according to the Broadcasting Authority :

1. The features therein (in Bondi+) were nothing other than promotion of government activity

2. No effort had been made at critical analysis

3. There was only a feeble attempt at establishing some sort of balance

But if one might think that it is hard to beat Mr Bondi’s ‘cheeky’ statement just try and digest this quote by MEPA’s Chairman for good measure.

“What was good in 2008 might not be so nowadays…’

Orwellian you might remark. I would rather say ‘logical’.

2008 was election year. 2010 is not likely to be so.

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www.leobrincat.com

Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change