Reference is made to the article published on the 20 May titled “Contract awarded amid ‘strange’ claims”.
Your report failed to give its readers the single most important fact: Bateman’s plant is more expensive in terms of capital cost, is also more expensive at operational cost level when run on diesel and would still be more expensive now and at any time that Malta might switch to gas and this takes into consideration the capital investment required to convert the BWSC plant to gas!
It beats logic to understand why Enemalta should choose the more expansive plant to run, even if it runs on gas, seeing that that added expense would have to come from higher tariffs. With a differential varying between 30% to 70% the effect on tariffs is significant.
Although it is public knowledge – and has been for years – your correspondent also failed to mention that Enemalta already owns five gas turbines which today run on expensive diesel (rather than fuel oil).
Furthermore, it is incorrect to state that BWSC submitted a prototype never tested and highly polluting that runs on heavy fuel oil. The facts are that the plant is composed of proven technology which has been used before on electricity generation boilers.
It is also incorrect to state that 48 hours after the story was revealed Enemalta officials asked for a meeting with the General Contracts Committee. The meeting was set last week.
The Environment Impact Assessement is presently under way – another contradicting fact to your published information.
The public should know that the Legal Notice issued on January 2008 was to correctly transpose the European Union Large Combustion plant directive. The way the Legal Notice was originally and incorrectly transposed would have made Malta the only country in the world which would not be able to use diesel engines! MEPA, before correcting the Legal Notice, consulted with the Director General for environment at the EU Commission. This Legal Notice was made public in January 2008, and the tenders were submitted the following March. It is clear then that the evaluation criteria did not change in any way during the process.
The selected plant will have a footprint of 4,900 square meters against the 4000 square meters of the Bateman plant. This will leave 6,600 meters of extra space for further extensions. Here once again the article published last Wednesday was incorrect when saying that Delimara provides sufficient space only for phase 2 of the extension of the plan and not for phase 3.
The notification of the award was carried out according to law and as happens in every issue of public tenders. There was nothing “strange” about this process except for the odd strategy of Bateman NOT to appeal the decision of the Department of Contracts but to try and make a public issue of it. Bateman’s Maltese partners and legal advisors were certainly aware of contract procedures and law!
What MaltaToday describes as ‘toxic waste’ (as if it was some leak from a nuclear fall-out!) is no more and no less than the dust that today is produced by all generating plant and is pumped out of our power station chimneys into the air we breathe. The new plant will extract, pack and ship abroad for recycling. Even after paying for the cost of doing this the awarded bidder’s offer is still cheaper than Bateman’s.
Ian Vella
Information Officer
Enemalta Corporation
Editor’s note: 1) Waste does not have to be radio-active to be ‘toxic’; 2) By Mr Vella’s own admission the contract was awarded before the conclusion of any EIA; 3) Bateman has since filed a judicial protest against the decision to award the contract; 4) The ‘most important fact’, according to Enemalta, appears to be saving money by opting for a more polluting technology. This runs directly counter to government’s supposed commitment to protecting the environment and safeguarding public health.
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