Don’t you just love the illustration accompanying the call for the public to be part of the revision of Mepa’s Local Plans. It is so insultingly ‘in your dreams’. That is what the words should be in the puffs of smoke emitting from the traditional wooden balconies.
The best bit is the two storey buildings with absolutely nothing on the roofs. Such symmetry and no water tanks, TV discs, aerials and the most recent solar panels, some with accompanying chrome tanks that do wonders for neighbourly sun reflection.
The Mepa picture depicts a ghost town with zero traffic and worse no humanity at all, not even a stray dog. No gas man or bread van hooting away, no tal bigilla or ta ‘donuts’ with amplified sound, not even a horse or a bicycle in sight. And what about the fireworks that fill our skyline all summer? The puffs of smoke should be in the sky with accompanying ‘stars’ to depict the ghastly petards.
The only true depiction is the sparsity of trees.
Of course I am cynical about the whole shebang. Does anyone really think that your or my opinion counts? Money counts and nothing is going to change that.
Talking of money, the oil procurement scandal is now bubbling furiously. It has been simmering since the scandal broke. Then it got hotter, then cooled down a bit only to start simmering again. It reached boiling point two weeks ago following the auditor’s report.
This resulted in the Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi requesting the Police Commissioner to investigate whether Enemalta’s oil procurement process between 2008 and May 2011 involved criminal conduct.
What is astounding is that no policy framework was in place during the period 2008 up to end 2010. Prior to the formulation of the Corporation’s Fuel Procurement Policy in January 2011, Enemalta’s fuel procurement function was effectively operating in a policy vacuum, said the report.
This was when Enemalta was part of Austin Gatt’s portfolio and its chairman was Alex Tranter. With respect to meetings held in 2008 and 2009, corresponding FPC meeting minutes reviewed by NAO lacked the most rudimentary level of detail and bore no information relating to meeting discussions and decisions taken. Besides being handwritten and mostly undecipherable, these minutes also lacked a basic record of committee members present.
It was impossible for the NAO to effectively audit the decision-making process employed by the committee in adjudicated tender bids received and evaluated prior to May 2011. The implications of such severe limitations in the availability of records documenting the FPC’s decision-making process are brought to the fore in those instances when the Committee awarded contracts to bidders who (based on severely limited information at the NAO’s disposal) did not submit the most favourable offer.
NAO’s principal concern emerging in relation to the transfer of diesel, during the period 2008 up to mid 2011, centres on the poor contract management practices exhibited by Enemalta. Such shortcomings were rendered amply evident through the series of contractual extensions directly conceded to an oil bunkering company, which, at best, may be considered as representing an affront to the principles of good governance. This already highly tenuous situation is further exacerbated by the considerable increase in the rate payable to the contractor.
The revision in rate, irrespective of excuses regarding the cleansing of barges put forward by Enemalta on behalf of Island Bunker Oils Ltd is, in NAO’s view, unacceptable justification for bypassing the most fundamental principles of good practice with respect to procurement.
Wow, quite an indictment. Former minister Austin Gatt is rejecting any liability for this gross mismanagement and bad practice and governance. He claims that since he never got involved in any tendering process he is blameless. But are not ministers responsible for their portfolios? Of course they are and should be accountable for any mismanagement and bad practice and governance within any entity in his/her remit.
Same goes for the Nationalist Party. Yes, it paid dearly for its mistakes in this regard at the general election and real and tangible progress was subsequently registered from mid-2011 onwards, but that does not exonerate the party in government when the deplorable state of affairs at Enemalta was left to fester for at least two years.
As for the former chairman Alex Tranter, he is keeping mum and claims he has not read the auditor’s report. I would suggest he does that as soon as possible if he intends to defend himself. The implications in his regard are very serious indeed.
Now on to something different, but an issue also due to bad governance. What is the Appeal Court waiting for before ruling on the illegal caravans at Armier? The end of summer? The public wants its beaches back. The Land Commissioner is calling on the Court to throw out the appeal and confirm the original judgment, giving him the green light to evict them once and for all.
In his reply to the appeal, the Lands Commissioner argued that there was no way that a letter from any previous government could be construed as a binding contract that allowed people who had usurped public land to continue to occupy it. Let’s hope justice will finally be done and the public will at last get some good representation.
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