Joe Mizzi, the opposition's spokesman on energy, said yesterday that according to the government's own workings, the recent drop in oil prices should have pushed the power surcharge down to 51 per cent and not 59 per cent as announced last week.

Mr Mizzi said in Parliament that the opposition continued to be against the way the surcharge was worked out and it felt that it could be reduced by between 40-50 per cent by capping or reducing VAT and duties on oil imports and removing an element which covered inefficiencies in power generation.

The Labour MP said during the budget debate that the government in the budget had not explained its energy policies and plans. True, it issued the power generation plan a few weeks ago but that only served to unveil the precarious state of the sector. As a result of a lack of planning, the government would have to take emergency decisions, at a cost to the people.

The government had said a year ago that it wanted to adopt short term plans for electricity generation using diesel plants but its plans were opposed by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority on environmental grounds, with a preference shown for combined cycle systems. A year on, the situation was still uncertain.

Hardly any importance was being given to alternative sources of energy. The Resources Authority had issued a document on alternative energy which was not compatible with EU policies.

The opposition, as it had suggested before, was in favour of considering the creation of a wind farm on Hurd's Bank and it also favoured linking up to the European power grid.

But there also needed to be stronger emphasis on energy efficiency through the promotion of efficient building systems and the use of low energy domestic apparatus. What was holding the government from laying down that new buildings had to include solar water heaters, which would be subsidised?

Unfortunately, however, Enemalta and the Resources Authority were not seeing eye to eye.

The only solution the government had come up with to solve its energy problems was the imposition of a steep surcharge on consumption.

The opposition, he said, stood by its criticism of the government over hedging of oil purchases.

Touching briefly on Maltacom, Mr Mizzi said he felt employees should have been offered shares in the company.

On the Water Services Corporation, Mr Mizzi said the desalination section was working well but there was inefficiency in the area of new services and repairs. The setting up of sewage purification plants had fallen back, and, Mr Mizzi said, the government should not deceive anyone, these plants were only being built because of EU pressure.

On Maltapost, Mr Mizzi said costs for clients had gone up but the delivery service had deteriorated. The workers were demoralised because they were being overworked and there was lack of planning.

Chris Agius, opposition spokesman for industry, said bureaucracy and inefficiency in government departments were continuing to cause problems for industry.

A Labour government would appoint a committee including business leaders which would identify problems to competitiveness with a view to ironing them out. The Labour MP criticised the government for not delivering on its promise to operate a venture capital fund.

The Maltese industrial sector was continuing to lose labour intensive industry to low paying destinations but Malta had attracted higher value added enterprises such as those in pharmaceuticals and IT. It was worrying, however, that investors were still complaining that there was a lack of skilled labour. Malta had the structures to train its young workers and also to re-train workers whose current employment did not have a secure future. It was good that the government had decided to positively discriminate in favour of students in science and technology and some progress had been made, but it was still not enough and more incentives may be needed.

Last year, Mr Agius said the government had defended Malta's industrial performance, arguing that a decline was only the result of a drop in export value by ST. By the same yardstick, much of the progress in manufacturing sales registered this year came from ST, whose performance had seen an upsurge. Sales by most other industrial sectors had declined. Clearly the manufacturing sector was not making the sort of recovery the Prime Minister had spoken about.

Investment had also dropped in most sectors, except the sub-sector which included ST. Total manufacturing employment dropped by over 900 and it was only part-time work which increased.

Turning to Malta Enterprise (ME), Mr Agius said he hoped that projections of investment which would create 3,600 jobs would materialise. In what areas would these new jobs be? How soon would these new activities come on stream? The opposition felt investment promotion needed to be given more importance. What were the overseas offices doing? An updating of the Business Promotion Act was overdue. Financial incentives had to be given in a transparent manner and lessons should be learnt. Unfortunately one recently heard of another story where no one knew what had happened to a company given a bank guarantee by ME. A future Labour government would rationalise ME while placing a stronger focus on overseas promotion in its activities.

Mr Agius said the Kordin Business Incubation Centre was a good idea, but start-ups needed to be supported even when they moved out.

Turning to Malta Industrial Parks, Mr Agius asked how the Lm17 million committed to new factory building two years ago had been used. Malta, he said, still lacked factory space and many factory buildings were old and inadequate. The state of several estates left much to be desired.

Mr Agius also spoke on the film industry, saying the growth rate was inconsistent. The introduction of incentives had served to attract interest this year but this was a fragile sector and Malta needed to be careful not to take any actions which could cause harm. Malta needed to ply to its strengths, including Ricasoli and the water tanks.

The Labour MP criticised delays in the redevelopment of the crafts village, saying this would be given priority by Labour.

He said e-gaming was a growing industry which deserved attention.

Leo Brincat, opposition spokesman on IT, said promises made in the budget last year had not been kept. The Prime Minister had promised e-business roadmaps and e-learning consortiums.

He had said Mitts would no longer be providing a maintenance service on personal computers or focusing on non-strategic systems with these services to be outsourced.

The setting up of two new data centres with internal communication had also not resulted.

The government last year promised Lm4 million in tax credits for firms investing in new technology and Lm500,000 to companies setting up e-business in Malta. Had this happened?

In the 2007 budget the Prime Minister spoke like the investment by Tecom in Smartcity was cut and dry, when it was five months late. He hoped the minister would announce the finalisation of talks and that the project would really materialise and not become another Chambray.

Mr Brincat said Malta was still at the bottom of the table with regard to investment in research and the number of ICT graduates. The implementation of the IT strategy had also fallen behind, as the opposition had forecast. By this time the people were supposed to be carrying a smart card with their medical history, all government services were supposed to be online and 60 per cent of internet users were supposed to be linked to broadband, when the current level was 45 per cent. By the end of this year's half of internet users were supposed to have electronic signatures.

Now word of a new ICT strategy was being heard. Who would handle it?

What progress was made in the appointment of a chief executive officer at Mitts?

Mr Brincat said the MLP's ICT vision document had been well received by constituted bodies and feedback was very encouraging although the minister's reaction, as usual, smacked of arrogance.

Labour had showed confidence in the private sector, saying non strategic government services should be operated by the private sector. What Labour would not do was buy systems off the shelf without proper planning, as had been done at Customs. Strategic elements such as inland revenue and social services would be operated by Mitts.

Labour's vision document also called on the private sector to develop e-commerce and e-business. It had said that ICT should be an essential element of economic growth. Malta should be branded as an intelligent country which promoted ICT. At the same time more students should be trained in ICT and there should be an ICT faculty at the university.

There should be an extensive-learning programme; a programme of IT proficiency, and foreign students should be attracted to learn IT in Malta, in the same way as they came here to learn English, IT should also be used to promote and market Malta's heritage and tourism attractions; there should be a level playing field for open source and proprietary software providers and a Maltese language ICT tool should be developed.

Joe Debono Grech (MLP) spoke on Malta International Airport and said that the mistake in having a foreigner as Malta's gatekeeper was gradually being realised. One only needed to see the comments made by Ryanair's chief executive Michael Crawley (reported yesterday).

The government was saying it had no say in MIA operations because this was a private company, yet appointments at the airport still favoured the government's friends of friends even though they were untrained and lacked experience.

Mr Debono Grech said workers were being disheartened at MIA. Shifts were being changed abruptly and inconveniently. Was this a tactic to make them resign? His appeal was for them not to lose heart. A Labour government would protect the national interest and they would get justice.

Joseph Cuschieri (MLP) underlined Air Malta's importance for tourism but observed that despite the deep restructuring, the sale of assets and workers' sacrifices, the airline had still lost millions.

Now that the Memorandum of Understanding with the workers was about to expire, what would follow? Would conditions improve? What was the government's strategy for Air Malta? What revenue had been made from the sale of the RJ aircraft previously used by AzzurraAir and how many of these aircraft remained?

Turning to low-cost airlines, Mr Cuschieri asked whether the government was taking care to ensure that no airline assumed a dominant position. How was Air Malta being protected? What was stopping the government from giving Air Malta the same subsidies as low-cost airlines?