“There is a strong feeling in the trade that had BWSC not had an inkling that emission levels would have been reduced they might not have considered tendering at all while on the other hand it is likely that other bidders would have not bothered to tender at all had they known that the heavy fuel option would have prevailed at day’s end”
The Enemalta power station extension saga somehow reminded me of the Agatha Christie classic Murder on the Orient Express.
I am in no way implying that murderous plots are or were afoot and that any of the key characters in the local tragic-comedy has any blood on his hands, but all those who think that the whole saga begins and ends with broker Joe Mizzi’s alleged involvement in this case must be either gullible, naïve or both.
The Agatha Christie saga came to mind because although at one stage suspicions about the murdered key character of American businessman Ratchett pointed one way or the other, at the end of the day it resulted that all the key players had a finger in the pie.
Were it not for the Labour Party the irregularities inherent in this shameful saga would not have even seen the light of day.
While some were shocked at the way Tonio Fenech tried to shore up all that went on during the term of office of Austin Gatt as Minister for Energy, they should be classified as gullible too.
I vividly recall that when we were planning the Public Accounts Committee sessions on the Voice of the Mediterranean issue, Tonio Fenech had told us point blank that he hopes that we will limit our interventions to establishing whether there was any good governance or lack of it and stop there. As PAC members this was obviously our remit and objective. Lo and behold, in spite of the damning evidence that had seen the light of day and the inherently glaring cases of bad governance, on that occasion Minister Fenech had nevertheless decided to join the rest of his colleagues, in voting against the motion tabled by the Opposition on the whole issue of lack of good governance about the way in which the VOM had been run.
Today I will limit myself to various environmental considerations that beg the question as to why Enemalta chose to change tack on the selection process of this power station extension at a time when the government and the minister responsible were at that time unchanged.
I share former Nationalist Minister Michael Falzon’s concern as expressed in other sections of the local media when he had remarked that he was spurred to comment about Enemalta’s choice of technology simply because he believes that its environmentally damaging aspects should not have been ignored. He had added – I still think that these aspects have not been given their due importance. One worrying point is that on one hand Government’s Climate Change Committee recommends that Malta should switch to natural gas for the production of electricity by 2015 and then the same government – through Enemalta – decides to buy a plant that uses heavy fuel oil and justifies this decision on a financial assessment partly based on the projected use of heavy fuel oil for a much longer period than that between the currently projected commissioning date of the plant and the 2015 limit indicated by the Climate Change Committee.
Although I am inclined to agree with Mr Falzon that it does seem that the government is all at sea about energy related environment policies, with the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, I must confess that I find it hard to believe that all this boils down to sheer incompetence, lack of experience and shortage of professionalism.
By the same yardstick we might as well have shifted back to coal which would have proved to be even cheaper still!
One development which Mr Falzon might have missed out on was that although the point he made was incorporated in the Draft Climate Change report by the time the report was finalised only a few months later, government changed tack completely to be able to accommodate the sudden and unexpected shift to heavy fuel oil while putting the natural gas option on the slow burner!
No satisfactory explanation has been provided by government so far as to why the environmental aspect of the whole project has been downplayed and ignored by government, when Mr Spiteri Gingell had told the Public Accounts Committee that environmental considerations were at the forefront when the decision to extend the power station were taken. Enemalta’s decision also contrasts sharply with Lawrence Gonzi’s repeated pledge that for his government the environment comes first and foremost.
There is a strong feeling in the trade that had BWSC not had an inkling that emission levels would have been reduced they might not have considered tendering at all while on the other hand it is likely that other bidders would have not bothered to tender at all had they known that the heavy fuel option would have prevailed at day’s end.
I was shocked when two foreign experts without any vested interest in the project told me that rather than adding to our energy this project will add to our misery while another one claimed that since we joined the EU inspite of advancement in other areas, we are becoming more and more like a third world country as far as environmental and good governance standards are concerned.
The advertising campaign triggered by Enemalta (for which read government) literally on the eve of the publication of the NAO report added more insult to injury. Common sense dictates that when carrying such ads – if necessary at all – one should compare the various types of technology under consideration rather than comparing the ‘new’ technology with the one being hopefully and belatedly phased out.
It is shameful that not only do we know precisely how much toxic waste the project will be generating but also whether we will manage to dispose of it in a timely manner, particularly since our storage capacity remains limited.
As I already had occasion to remark, the EIA carried out was weakest when addressing the environmental health assessment aspect.
How can one take the present government seriously on environmental health issues, when it has been dragging its feet so long on such issues as the black dust issues, on the Hexagon House saga, when a damning report is due on short comings at the Marsa abattoir, when MEPA and Enemalta have been busy blaming each other on who switched the precipitators off as well as why the St Luke’s chimney continues to bellow smoke inspite of government’s weak and apologetic statement.
If proof was every needed as to how insensitive this administration is to environmental issues all that one needs to do is to refer to the last issue of The Malta Independent on Sunday (page 10) when Minister Gatt was reported in bold titles to have stated that: Particulate matter – oh, it’s just dust...
I am writing this article at a point in time when the country remains with an energy policy that is still in draft and proposal form, while the Enemalta Corporation Electricity Generation Plan for 2006-2015 continues to retain an inherent bias in favour of opting for natural gas.
It is common knowledge that government not only has studies in hand as to how to set up a natural gas depot/terminal at Delimara but also as to how this could have been transported from Gela to Delimara.
In 2006 Minister Gatt and a number of Enemalta senior officials had addressed a seminar in which apart from waxing lyrical in favour of natural gas they had ruled out medium speed diesel engines for the power plant extension since it understandably does not meet present environmental standards.
If medium speed diesel did not make sense in 2006 why should it make sense in 2011 or 2012?
It is also undisputed that in a pre-electoral dossier prepared by Enemalta, almost literally on the eve of the 2008 elections, they had shown an evident bias in favour of the natural gas option.
Although the EIA had hinted that one should explore the possibility of burning the resultant sludge from the extension at the Marsa incinerator, expert opinion has it that this is likelier to happen if government will implement the already strategically taken decision of setting up a waste incinerator some 8-10 times bigger than that at Marsa, possibly as originally proposed at Marsaxlokk.
In spite of this fact that this administration is known for its lack of vision, inefficiency, incompetence and lack of strategic direction, I have a nagging feeling that there is more than meets the eye to this mega U turn that is likely to come at a very high environmental health price for the ordinary man in the street and taxpayer.
The more Lawrence Gonzi rubs his hands with glee that the auditor showed that there was no proven corruption in the tender, the more we should worry about Gonzi’s understanding of good governance.
I am not at all surprised at his shocking political behaviour.
After all while governments elsewhere tend to take Transparency International reports very seriously, he has always been inclined to shoot them down by dismissing them as being based on mere perceptions.
Please allow me to add some concluding remarks and observations:
1. How serious can our tendering process be when everything seems to suggest and or imply that bidders could have had inside and privileged knowledge not generally available to everybody else?
2. In deciding not to adopt the NAO recommendation of aborting the tender and starting afresh, government was unfair to bidders in general
3. The Department of Contracts is as much to blame as Enemalta for its passivity in this whole process. It is evident that they applied only limited control over Enemalta.
4. Is government aware that a five-year maintenance agreement will be virtually worthless? Expert opinion suggests that with this kind of technological system, problems should start becoming apparent after the five-year maintenance period.
5. On the issue of liquidated damages if emission levels are surpassed, contrary to what might have been accepted in principle, Enemalta will not be in a position to refuse the plant.
6. The unwillingness of BWSC to guarantee emission levels by crossing out all guarantees should have been more than enough reason for the BWSC bid to have been thrown out after creating sufficient grounds for suspicion that Enemalta could have possibly wanted BWSC at all costs and that BWSC might have even known that!
Even a non-technical person should agree that rather than pure administrative hiccups we have here gross incompetence and irresponsibility and even possibly more than meets the eye...
As an environment spokesperson, I am deeply concerned that waste disposal costs are not adequately covered in the report, and it is not known if a realistic figure was adopted.
I find it very preoccupying to read the damning statement by the NAO that the contract as signed – hurriedly – does not offer sufficient safeguard for the investment being made by Enemalta.
Whether Enemalta has fallen short of its responsibilities due to mere incompetence or corruption, we taxpayers will end up unacceptably footing the bill.
The way that the Dept of Contracts was almost completely sidelined should fuel our suspicions further.
In the private sector a director of a private company is personally liable in the event of negligence.
In this case who is going to carry the can both regarding the negligence involved as well as the political responsibility that needs to be assumed?
The more the Gonzi/Fenech duo claim to be happy with the outcome of the NAO report the more the taxpayer has valid reason to show his disgust, apprehension and concern.
At the end of the day there will be two main losers – those who will be coerced into footing the bill and Gonzi’s long tarnished credibility.
Meanwhile I could not but help noticing that while certain newspapers took their time to react to this scandal by the time of writing others have not even yet found time or space to do so.
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Leo Brincat is the Shadow Minister for the Environment, Sustainable Development & Climate Change.