Were it up to certain Opposition circles, certain studies should or would have never been commissioned.

They were often instantly dismissed as witch hunts even before their contents were made known.

In some cases they ended up as far more a case of shooting the messenger rather than heeding the message itself by even digging deep to establish what one’s political credentials were in order to imply that there could have been a political agenda underlying them all.

This government acts differently.

When it commissions a study, it does not look at the political credentials of those on whose capabilities it may draw.

This is confirmed by the fact that the soon to be published findings on the Family Park itself were entrusted to none other than a highly respected government agency – The Management Efficiency Unit.

I am sure that these, coupled with a detailed study of the financial mess that WasteServ happens to be in, will continue to draw not particularly ‘friendly’ fire.

It is our intention to have all such reports finalised by not later than early August in order to have the big picture, rather than to push ahead with our own agenda, regardless of such findings.

Although the idea of temporarily closing the Family Park was due to the opinion of the experts who drew up the report, rather than a firm recommendation, we felt that we had to act politically on the side of prudence, as well as out of respect for the technical capabilities of the specialists themselves.

Meanwhile, it would be a pity were this saga to be used conveniently to deflect attention from some of their most startling findings which we are now equally obliged to address:

a)     Only half of the organic waste that should have been processed anaerobically during 2011 and 2012 met the targets long-set.

b)    Biogas production is shown to be so far below the level required that, in spite of a 1,400 household per annum benchmark, according to Dr E.A. Mallia’s team, after taking into account the energy produced to cover its own operational requirements, peak power generation from Sant’ Antnin so far is barely enough to meet the requirements of 45 households!

c)     The air quality monitoring procedure in the plant’s surrounding area was so poor and lacking that we are now committed to re-evaluating it so that air sampling for certain pollutants can be carried out on a continuous 24 hours basis, in the hope of publishing all such results in the shortest possible time. The report proved what we had suspected all along: that the environmental monitoring system needed to become more efficient.

d)    One issue to be addressed is the need to have a proper national waste separation system in place with the promotion of initiatives that favour waste separation at source having become an urgent matter.

e)     That it was a big mistake in the first place to have the Family Park located next to the St Antnin plant.

f)      One of the main issues with the Sant’ Antnin compost is that its heavy metal content was considered too high.

g)     Occupational Health and Safety was always so lacking at St Antnin that it ended up highlighted as a deficiency in both the HR Report that I commissioned as well as in Dr Mallia’s report just published. When the review team asked for a risk assessment, they were only presented with an unsigned digital copy that goes back more than two years.

h)     They were shocked to discover that one single person was responsible for health and safety in all Wasteserv’s operations in both Malta and Gozo.

i)       Supervision was so poor that it had become customary for workers to carry out work in hazardous situations without even wearing personal protective clothing.

j)       In spite of much boasting about waste to energy at WasteServ, the report concluded that Malta, and not just WSM, needs to consider a more intensive investment in waste-to-energy technology if this is to contribute significantly to the 2020 renewable energy targets.

To my mind, the most deficient aspect of the whole operational set-up that we inherited due to bad planning and bad management was the following. I would rather quote verbatim from the Dr Mallia’s report:

“Performance predictions on uncertain or unclear assumptions and a lack of monitoring of actual performance will invariably lead to failure to achieve set targets…

“It would have been more convenient for us to adopt a business as usual approach and merely hit the road running in full disregard of these major shortcomings.

“But our strong notion of good governance has urged us to act differently.”

And so we did. Although we shall never be laying any claims to perfection or infallibility.

Leo Brincat is the Minister for Sustainable Development, the Environment and Climate Change. (Waste Management Strategy forms part of his portfolio)

[email protected]

www.leobrincat.com