Enemalta damage hanging fire

The way the government and Enemalta are ignoring criticism concerning how the expansion of the Delimara Power Station is being planned and progressing does not earn them any plaudits or admiration. The more they treat criticism as if it were water off a duck's back, the less transparent and credible they appear.

The criticism started and continues to be led by Labour MP Evarist Bartolo. Week after week he produces devastating comment about his thesis that things were not done properly, saying they were in fact carried out improperly, that is convincing in itself. It becomes all the more so given that the authorities simply plead a faint "not guilty", but do not take it upon themselves to counter Mr Bartolo's offensive point by point.

That is not how things should work in a democracy. The Honourable Bartolo is being studiously ignored not only as a member of the House of Representatives, but also as a respected media columnist. The authorities remain silent, ignoring the maxim that silence means consent, in this case acceptance that the charges being levied against them are valid or at a minimum contain a high degree of validity.

Let me say where I disagree with Evarist Bartolo. His charges include two related points. One, that a sub contractor of the dubiously awarded tender by Enemalta is Żaren Vassallo, who makes no attempt to hide his Nationalist sympathies. The other is that the current Enemalta chairman is Alex Tranter, who also works within the Vassallo fold, specifically in the CareMalta sector.

Being a sympathiser of the government of the day should not exclude a contractor from being connected with public sector projects. Otherwise we shall turn into a country where polarisation and partisanship extend to tenders being awarded only to supporters of the government in office. There is a measure of that under all administrations, whichever side of the political spectrum they come from. But the actuality is wrong.

Tenders should go to the best bidders. Sly or worse tenderers might signal they would employ government-sympathising subcontractors should they be successful. Yet the way to combat such blatant attempts to influence awards have to be met with totally transparent contract awarding systems, not by constant suspicion by one side of the other.

As for the Enemalta chairman he has stated that he had declared a potential conflict of interest and stayed out of the Enemalta award. The ethics governing conflicts of interest require such early declarations and actions. If they are made and taken they should not be held up as suspicious factors, not unless we are going to live under an unending cloud-mass of suspicion.

Mr Bartolo is on much surer grounds when he lays out through pounding logic how the goal posts were shifted to change Enemalta's declared commitment to gas-fired equipment and to the neglect of the government to ensure we could secure adequate gas supplies by 2012. The facts laid out by the Labour MP to prove how Enemalta contradicted itself and is hoist by its own petard have not been refuted. Indeed, they seem irrefutable.

Broadening the consideration of this suspicious affair one notes that the respected London journal The Economist last week pointed out that natural gas provides around two-fifths of electricity and heats over three-quarters of all homes in the UK. There has to be a reason why and that reason is that gas can be more efficient and cheaper than oil derivatives. If and when that is the case our utility tariffs need not be as high as the government has set them.

This is not a Labour-inspired political issue, as the government is spinning. It is a socio-economic matter. If in addition to continuing inefficiency at Enemalta and inadequate securing of oil supplies it is a fact that we are using the wrong fuel, tariffs are unnecessarily high. That has a harsher than necessary negative impact on domestic consumers, who will only get a one-off (contradictory) subsidy in 2010, and in particular for industrial and commercial users, who will get nothing but a massive hike in energy costs.

The government may ignore mass protests against the extent of the tariff hikes. It cannot ignore the negative socio-economic impacts.

It is not just Evarist Bartolo who is hugely critical of the way he Enemalta extension is set about to be executed. Many voices have been raised in the southern region of Malta. Various bodies and individuals have expressed grave concern over the environmental implications of the oil-fired project, which will require massive daily disposal of obnoxious waste. Some government MPs too are known to be highly sceptical of Enemalta's plans. They will remain that, notwithstanding the way they were massaged by the Prime Minister last week, through one-to-one meetings and in extended collective sessions with his parliamentary group.

Despite skimpy replies given by Enemalta regarding waste disposal many more people remain unconvinced than government apologists make out. Grim silence will not make them change their mind. Possibly their and Mr Bartolo's reservations will be tested into the life of the next government. The fact that the culprits for potential damage will no longer be meaningfully answerable will only make the ongoing story more unpalatable.