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Julian Manduca
While the government has no fixed timeframe for a new hospital waste treatment facility, people living in the Pietà, Guardamangia area continue to phone this newspaper claiming the pollution from the malfunctioning waste incinerator at St Luke’s hospital is unbearable.
Last year the government had planned to replace the St Luke’s incinerator, but the tender award was not honoured. This year the government decided to issue a tender for a waste treatment facility at Mater Dei, but with the project now stalled those living in the vicinity of St Luke’s are likely to suffer for longer than was originally planned.
When MaltaToday asked the health ministry what the timeframe was for the St Luke’s incinerator’s replacement the reply was: “There is no fixed time frame for the incinerator replacement.” The health ministry explained: “The Contracts Department is following a very strict tendering procedure which cannot be in any way curtailed to make it faster.”
Asked when it was likely that the adjudicating committee for the tender could be expected to take a decision, the health ministry replied: “During the past weeks the committee has been evaluating 26 expressions of interest,” but failed to indicate when a decision will be taken.
The St Luke’s incinerator has been the subject of intense controversy for more than six years and in 1999 the government made a commitment to replace it. In July of 2001 members of Greenpeace Mediterranean scaled the chimney in a memorable protest that saw activists and photographers arrested by the police. In 2003 a tender was awarded of the incinerator’s replacement but the winners could not fulfil their obligations after MaltaToday had revealed that several of the top officials of the supplying company were either in prison or facing fraud charges. The incinerator should have been replaced one year ago.
When MaltaToday asked the minister whether he was concerned that the process was taking so long, Minister Deguara replied: “The minister is very concerned but this concern does not give the minister the luxury to bypass the tendering procedure to speed up matters.”
julian@newsworksltd.com
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