Regardless of whether any of Gonzi’s MPs were resorting to brinkmanship or not over the past months, the Prime Minister has been bending so much backwards to try and appease them that he invariably ended up stretching the art of compromise way beyond snapping point – with the net result that he came across as a weak and ineffective Prime Minister in the process, clinging on to power even at the expense of eating humble pie and sacrificing his own credibility

Such behaviour looks even more rich when compared and contrasted with recent ongoing efforts by the PN and the PN-leaning media to portray Joseph Muscat as a young inexperienced politician whose sole interest is to assume political power at all costs.

A typical case in point was Gonzi’s recent discovery and disclosure that he was committed to realign his ministries and split the justice portfolio from home affairs.

Regardless of any of its intrinsic merits, to the best of my knowledge this item had never featured on Gonzi’s agenda before Franco Debono had first raised the issue.

This merely goes to prove the extent of Gonzi’s weak knee-jerk reactions every time he finds himself under pressure.

No wonder that respected commentators like Lino Spiteri remarked that given the lateness of the Prime Minister’s convergence to this good idea, one can only conclude that he did so because of media reports that Dr Debono might consider his vote on the Criminal Code amendments proposed by the Home Affairs Minister.

For Gonzi to go on record making such a statement so late in the life of this legislature exposes even further his weakness and opportunism in clinging to power at all costs, even at the expense of rendering his own political image even feebler than it already is.

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott similarly hit the nail on the head when he was quoted as having said that although the idea was not illogical, obviously, if Dr Gonzi decides to implement the idea simply because he has perceived the proposal as a threat by an MP, then it will not be a good sign at all.

The additional news that Malta slipped two places on the enlarged corruption index of Transparency International while continuing to fare among the worst of the EU member states, is something that only governments like ours, that suffer badly from acute hubris, tend to try and downplay and ignore.

Last week must have indeed been a bad week for Gonzi on all fronts.

Meanwhile during the same period we also had some interesting debates in the House, among which was the one on the Ministry of Resources, where the minister concerned George Pullicino – still reeling from his dismal performance on Xarabank – chose to stick to his by now customary tradition of ignoring most of the points and criticism raised at this end.

Perhaps the government minister responsible might choose to do so through the columns of your newspaper or else through the DOI.

The salient points were the following:

• What is government’s reaction to the claim of 28 November by the Energy Research Centre of The Netherlands that Malta is unlikely to meet its 2020 national renewable energy action plan target of 10%?

• Why does Minister Pullicino continue to refuse to admit that he was found guilty by Judge Gino Camilleri of having breached the rights of the Marsaxlokk local council and residents over the Sant’Antnin project when I tabled extracts from the court sentence in Parliament and also showed how Minister Pullicino had appealed from the said judgement?

• Why is government giving people to understand that the Sikka L-Bajda project will happen when its environmental impact studies have not been completed and certain tests have been delayed by another two years? Is government still in the position – as admitted by Minister Pullicino – that it has no Plan B should the project fall through?

• Why did government go on record raising people’s hopes on electric cars’ affordability when their lack of affordability has been the main reason for their poor take up, worldwide?

• What led to such delays in the publication of government’s Green Jobs strategy when we had long been promised an action plan? Both the GRTU and the UĦM were critical of the lack of concrete government measures on the environment and on greening the economy;

• Did the minister accept or refuse my invitation to start presenting to the House an annual energy statement as is done in Parliaments elsewhere, including the House of Commons?

• Was my invitation to discuss climate change in the House without a vote being taken in the post-Durban period accepted or rejected?

• Has my call for feed-in tariffs for certain sized alternative energy projects been accepted or refused?

• Were electoral considerations the reason why government first showed great urgency to introduce an incineration plant in Delimara and now suddenly decided to postpone the issue to 2015 at the latest by when the elections will be long past?

• What is the real state of play between the Maltese government and the Italian energy agency Terna on the interconnector?

• Is it true or not that the Marsa incinerator is encountering serious problems regarding disposal and storage of animal tissue waste and contacts have been made with a Sicilian company called Sicilgrassi before any tenders seem to have been issued yet?

• Why are most enquiries regarding alternative energy projects in Gozo allegedly referred by the PM to the Minister for Gozo rather than to the Minister for Resources or MRA?

• Who has been responsible for blocking Prof. EA Mallia’s proposal to consider a wind farm closer to Gozo in spite of its wind flows being far better placed than those of Sikka l-Bajda itself?

• Why was there no budgetary allocation of the polished treatment sewage effluent which is meant to cost some €12m?

• What is being effectively done to address the requirements of the Water Framework Directive?

• How does one explain the fact that the MRA website claims that biofuels extracted from cooking waste are not subject to duty while the Customs officials tend to argue differently?

• Why did government take two years to set up a consultative committee on climate change once this proposal had been unanimously approved by Parliament in October 2009?

I personally believe that such replies should be in the public interest.

But then, this government does not really seem to care that much about the public interest as its recent track record has long gone on to show.

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www.leobrincat.com

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