All considered, it is a shame the new Parliament building was not completed by the PN administration that decided it and planned it. Important public works such as this should be begun and finished by the time the administration that stuck out its neck for it.

One understands that complex projects many times include unplanned delays. This project is the brainchild of world-famous Renzo Piano who undoubtedly would not like to see his name associated with such delays. His project has meanwhile, another consequence of the delay, been curtailed in particular the garden that was meant to enliven the ditch. Instead, it will once again be turned into a car park. Sigh! Nor has there been any plan to begin the replanning of the wide space just outside City Gate, the area of the Tritons Fountain.

Whatever, the new Parliament building, the progeny of an administration that has been swept away, was to be inaugurated, presumably by this administration (though Joseph Muscat once said he would get Lawrence Gonzi to inaugurate it, but he must have been joking) next Sunday. Parliament was meant to begin meeting in the new place as from today week: in fact, that was why Parliament took such a long recess.

Now, on the eve of the inauguration, the House Business Committee was told the new building is far from ready. Photos have been seen showing a half-ready Chamber and some furniture for the third floor, where the Speaker's suite will be, have not even reached Malta.

How come nobody noticed that the former assurances everything was on track were empty promises? Why did nobody notice that the parliamentary staff had apparently not even begun transferring the archives and their offices. As someone said during HBC, one would have also expected the soft launching of the new systems in the House, which apparently too are not ready.

Had it been the new Parliament building that has not been completed according to schedule, that would not have mattered much: we have a functioning Parliament as it is, and there is no real hurry. But now, thanks to our sister Sunday paper, we find there is another delay and this is far more serious: six months to what was declared will be the time for a new power station to start delivering electricity to the Maltese households,

-          The new power station has not even begun construction. There is no ongoing work on the site.

-          And one of the four members of the ElectroGas Consortium - Siemens - is saying it 'intends' to invest in the new gas power station. In other words, it has yet to invest.

A reply by a Siemens official to our sister paper speaks of various timelines that have been achieved, especially on the Special Purpose Vehicle that was created, but otherwise the same company says in its brochures that a gas power plant can take up to two years to be completed though some have been completed in 20 months.

More. The Floating Storage Unit (or gas ship) takes up to 18 months to be converted from an LNG supply ship and there is no word about the progress registered in this regard.

As much as we would welcome more the safe construction of the whole ensemble, than haste which could lead to shoddy work, this was after all the very serious commitment by the Labour Party before the election. There was no need to be so specific about timelines but the commitment was anyway made and non-delivery will make the government look silly come March 2015.

Be that as it may, electricity rates for households were decreased last March and those for businesses will be decreased by next year. These decreases were supposed to be sustained by the newer, cheaper, method of producing electricity.

Also, the supply from Italy of electricity through the Interconnector (another PN project) which was supposed to have come on stream months ago, is still nowhere near delivery.

All these delays in public project risk making us look stupid in the eyes of the world, apart from harming our national interests.