The Prime Minister and the Energy Minister on Monday presided over a ceremony to formally shut down the Marsa power station. Incidentally, it was on the ‘deadline’ day that the new gas-fired power station was supposed to be up and running.

The news also came on the day when the Auditor General published a report in which he flagged the Energy Minister’s ‘direction’ in the purchasing of fuel from Azerbaijani state company SOCAR. The report continues to state that there were areas where Enemalta’s governance had improved and it also pointed out that the government’s hedging policy had been profitable for much of the year. But all that was achieved in terms of financial gain was turned on its head as international oil prices dropped sharply towards the end of the year, resulting in a €8.6 million loss in terms of hedged fuel purchases.

Of late, the PM and the Energy Ministers have stopped short of apologising where the government has been shown to have not conformed to standards, but there have been some expressions of contrition. The Auditor General had flagged flaws in the Cafe Premier bailout deal and the Prime Minister admitted to procedural mistakes. A few days later, he also said that those same procedural mistakes were made due to the government being inexperienced.

In his press conference yesterday to mark two years of the Labour Party being in government, the Prime Minister again admitted that the fuel hedging anomalies could have been down to inexperience and a thirst for action.

Kudos to the PM on the second part of the statement, there is no doubt that the meandering behemoth that is the civil service needs to be slimmed down, brought up to speed and must become more conversant with electronic means, rather than through a mountain of papers.

But he must also realise that some procedures and checks and balances are necessary. The PM also admitted this when it was pointed out that he had told all civil service permanent  secretaries to resign, when their role is to provide continuity between one government and the next.

 “It is a valid point, I am not going to make excuses. The point I am trying to make is there is a lack of experience in the interface between politicians and the civil service as a whole,” he said.

This is true, but he must also realise that he has created a double whammy in terms of inexperience because as capable as a politician may be, he still needs to learn the skills to become part of a team that is running a country.

If those people who were there to show the new government how to come up to speed were removed, then we essentially have an inexperienced civil service which is still learning the ropes, along with a government that is still wet behind the ears.

In short, the government has admitted that it is inexperienced, but it also put people at the helm of the machinery that are also inexperienced. No the wonder there are ‘procedural lessons’ to be learned.