In some cultures, it is customary to leave your shoes at the door when you enter a house. Similarly, politics should be left at the door tomorrow as there will inevitably be a fiery hearing on the permit applications for the new LNG-fuelled power station by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

There is, after all, an awful lot at stake tomorrow and none of that should have anything to do with politics. But, unfortunately, the issue of power generation is, and perhaps always will be, inextricably tied to politics. 

From the commissioning of the Delimara power station as it stands today, to the electricity rates and the removal of the surcharge, to the controversial BWSC installation running on heavy fuel oil, to interconnectors and gas pipelines – the issue of energy generation in a country practically 100 per cent reliant on imported fossil fuels has never been far from political controversy.

But with the Labour Party’s electoral proposal to convert the Delimara power station to run on natural gas, matters took a different and far more sinister turn. Labour accused the Nationalists of having created a ‘cancer and asthma factory’ with the use of heavy fuel oil at Delimara, and the Nationalists replied by portraying Labour’s energy plans as constituting a ticking time bomb by proposing a gas storage facility the size of two Mosta domes.

Matters became more contentious still when the new Labour government unveiled plans to permanently berth an LNG tanker, a so-called floating storage facility, in Marsaxlokk Bay – the very issue up for discussion by Mepa tomorrow.

Having been a cornerstone of Labour election campaign, which led to a humiliating defeat at the polls for the Nationalist Party, there is most likely nothing more the PN could wish for other than to see the government’s plans being refused by the authority.

On the other hand, the Prime Minister had staked his own political future on his pledge to convert the power station to run on natural gas. He had, in fact, said he would resign if the timelines were not met and if the project did not result in a 25 per cent reduction in household electricity bills, a measure expected to be made tangible by the end of the month, and a matching reduction for businesses come March 2015, when the new power station should be up and running.

But even against this backdrop, this entire issue supersedes partisan politics by leaps and bounds. What we are speaking about here is the extremely delicate issue of energy generation and safety. And what is expected at the end of the day is not a compromise between these two apparently opposing considerations but, rather, a solution that works and which puts everyone’s mind at rest as far as public safety is concerned.

And in the meantime, the government insists on the blinkered approach that the only issue at stake is the prospect of cleaner energy and lower electricity bills. The Opposition, on quite the other hand, is sounding alarm bells over the safety hazards presented by the proposed floating storage unit.

Both parties are, in actual fact, right and they are both wrong. There is absolutely no doubt that everyone in the country wants to see electricity bills reduced, and everyone in the country undoubtedly wants their energy to be generated from cleaner, less polluting sources such as natural gas.

But, on the other hand, safety and the peace of mind of nearby residents must also be of paramount importance because when it comes to the increasingly controversial plans to berth an LNG floating storage unit right smack in the middle of Marsaxlokk Bay, the bottom line beyond any shade of doubt has to be public safety, no matter how minimal the potential risk is. After that, the main consideration must be to ensure that those people living a stone’s throw from the installation actually feel there is nothing to fear.

Despite what the government says, the people living in the environs of the Delimara power station are very concerned. But whatever the case, for all we know the proposal may be perfectly safe, the people of those areas must be assured that it is safe. For that to happen, there must be full confidence in the functioning of Mepa and the heavy politicisation of this issue does not help at all in this respect.

For all we know, the installation that the government is pushing through may very well be perfectly safe at the end of the day. But, when matters as obvious as risk assessments on issues such as fireworks and maritime risks are not even carried out, or are not published, there is a serious confidence problem.

The people need to have confidence that no stone has been left unturned in ensuring that the project is in line with every possible risk assessment, and the fact that not all of those risk assessments have been carried out or published before Mepa is called to rule on the permits being applied for, helps even less.

Safe or not, there are people who are very concerned and those concerns absolutely must be addressed. If more time is required, the Prime Minister could surely be forgiven for not meeting his self-imposed deadline because the necessary risk assessments or ensuing mitigating measures could require more time than the government had envisaged.

But, on the other hand, the Prime Minister will not be forgiven for throwing necessary risk assessments out the window in the interest of expediency.

In its headlong rush to push the project through in accordance with timelines, the government must not neglect the safety issues being raised by NGOs, the Opposition, the Green party and large swathes of civil society. 

If the government’s rush boils down to political expediency, the government should throw those pledges out the window and do the job properly with attention to every detail. That is the least that is expected of a government when such serious concerns, be they well founded or not, on such a major capital project are raised.