Unfortunately this government continues to be characterised by quick-fix solutions that are destined to have a lasting negative effect on the society we live in. The relaxing of development constraints in ODZ will irreparably harm our environment. The easing of height restrictions for hotels will flood the market with unwanted bed stock and reduce their value in the short to medium term. The sale of citizenship will provide cash but has already damaged our international reputation.

These policy decisions have a common trend. The government moves in haste so that it gets contentious issues over and done with before the general public gets to understand what the long term implications are. This is not the way things should be done. Policy-making needs the full involvement of all the social partners and civil society so that the best is harvested. Hasty decisions are detrimental to business and to Malta in general.

The signing of an 18-year power purchase agreement is yet another rushed decision. We should never have signed an agreement that obliges government to buy electricity for the full contract term with the price only being guaranteed for the first five years rather than 10 years as was originally promised.

Few seem to realise that our government has agreed to a penalty clause if a minimum threshold of electricity is not bought. This condition alone jeopardises the investment made for the electricity interconnector with Sicily. This is why the interconnector will now only be used at just 20 per cent capacity. This fact is leading to serious doubts as to whether the EU will accept that it provided some €20 million for a project that will now de facto almost become redundant. Indeed, people in the know have indicated that there is a very real possibility that the EU could ask for this money to be refunded if it feels that the original scope of the project is being discarded.

On a similar note, with the proposed LNG floating facility, Malta has possibly indicated that it will scrap the Malta-Sicily gas pipeline which the European Commission is ready to part-finance through the Connecting Europe Facility. Minister Mizzi is quoted as saying that should “additional facilities” be made available, the “ship would simply sail away” (Times of Malta, 14 October 2013). This, however, no longer seems to be the case. Questions are being asked as to whether these funds will be lost for good or whether Government is trying to shift them onto other projects.

I guess we will have to wait and see.

The development of an LNG floating storage facility, a re-gasification plant and a combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) electricity generating plant have also raised a number of safety concerns. It is now clear that there were no feasibility studies carried out on the different options for the supply of this hazardous fuel.

The Environment Impact Assessment being carried out has also been lambasted as incomplete. It is evident that there are huge gaps in the assessment that cannot go unaddressed. Data collection is very rudimentary and complete studies, such as the maritime risk assessment, have been completely ignored.

A number of questions remain unanswered concerning the safety of residents of Marsaxlokk, Birzebbuga and Marsascala. With the floating vessel being so close to the power station, any leak could easily find its way into one of the engines and send the whole generating system into disarray. The devastating impact a complete shutdown of the power station (for days or even weeks) would have in the event of a leak is beyond comprehension.

It would seem that this floating storage system and the on-land gasifier is the first of its kind in the world. It should never be situated within a kilometre of such a concentrated urban area.

Enemalta has said that siting the LNG floating facility outside the port will come at an additional cost. This raises the question as to why Enemalta is saying it will incur additional costs when, in actual fact, it should be the winning consortium that will bear that cost. 

Enemalta has also claimed that additional time will be required for the project to be completed if is to locate the LNG floating facility outside the port. I hope and trust that this is not linked to the Prime Minister’s pre-election pledge to resign if the new power plant is not ready within two years of his election. I’m sure that nobody will hold the PM to account if he does not manage to keep his two-year pledge due to safety concerns.

Installations of this kind are beyond our indigenous expertise and therefore every effort must be made to seek the technical support of international competent authorities in Europe on the control of major accidents and hazards to help us identify the risk before the site is issued with a land use permit by Mepa. The Dutch expert, a world authority it would seem, who spoke on behalf of Din l-Art Helwa at the public meeting made it clear that because the project as proposed is very risky, the authorities should not allow it to take place.

Of course nobody is against clean air in the south just as everyone is against endangering the lives of the people who live there. Gas will continue to be an option for the cleaner generation of electricity, provided that this is supplied safely through a pipeline and not through a vulnerable floating vessel in the busy port of Marsaxlokk.

Government must take heed of what independent experts, independent organisations and, above all, the residents of the area are saying. To err is human, to persist is diabolical.

Stefano Mallia is a Nationalist Party candidate in the upcoming European Parliamentary elections