Of pride and prejudices

How on earth can Alfred Sant be convinced of what he writes and implies? In last Wednesday's contribution (August 4) after sharing with us a few nonsensical examples of previous PN bad "infrastructural" decisions, his parting shot "Or is it something more sinister?" takes the cake. There are limits to anybody's patience and perhaps due to the mercury rising I just could not sit back and ignore his latest prejudiced barrage.

The anti-PN campaign is reaching astronomical levels. I do not intend going into the merits and demerits of each and every complaint as there are pros and there are cons to everything but, for fairness sake, let's not go overboard. Let's not destroy the good. Let's not let our pride and prejudices warp our vision. Let's remove our political blinkers!

Back to Dr Sant's destructive piece. Rightly so he claims that the PN administration built up the country's modern infrastructure. He states, unfairly, that "the energy supply situation is still dicey".

Claiming, rightly or wrongly, that the Delimara project some 17 years ago cost us Lm120 million he complains that the Marsa power station is still not "wound down". What is his point exactly? Should the Delimara station not have been built? Should the Marsa plant be shut down? Should people use less electricity?

In an ideal world, I agree that if Delimara could bear the load, then I too would insist on doing away with the Marsa plant once and for all. But there are constrictions. The demand over these last 17 years has increased tremendously as Dr Sant is well aware.

I am curious to know what measures Dr Sant would take if he were Prime Minister? Why didn't he offer at least one remedial measure rather than criticise so unconstructively?

Perhaps Dr Sant would choose to turn off the lights on the bastions, coast roads, major arteries, introduce quotas on consumption, on incoming tourists, on the importation and use of washing machines, television sets, electric ovens, microwave ovens, electric kettles, fans, air conditioners etc?

Dr Sant's negative sweeping statements continue. He whines that the PN administration should not have commissioned so many reverse osmosis plants because one or two of them are left idle. I am no technical expert but I can thankfully say that water flows freely from our taps perhaps because our country now has a back-up system in place to smoothen matters over when things go very wrong.

He moans that the investments made for the Gozo-Malta ferries were "a rushed contract" which led to "extremely costly ships to run". Would Dr Sant have us travel on the "incubators" we used to cross on? Is it true that the only investment return is, as he puts it, is "the ongoing confusion at the harbour every time a ship arrives"? What is his point exactly? Where's the logic? Where is his forward looking argument? What vision is that?

Dr Sant goes on and on demolishing all the PN's past deeds insisting that everything with the administration so far has been flawed while resisting any encouraging declaration.

Ironically he concludes that "for some people whatever Labour says or does must be automatically shot down". Excuse me! Is it possible that when he reached the end of his fifth column Dr Sant forgot the bombardment he had torpedoed in the previous four-and-a-half?