Even though Lawrence Gonzi once famously said that people should judge him by what he does rather than by what he says – as if they were two absolutely different things – his utterances often astound me.
Take, for example, the pronouncement that the decision on whether the rebuilt theatre in the place of the old Opera House will be roofless or roofed over, is one completely in the hands of the architect, i.e. Renzo Piano. The proposed theatre may well be roofless, but I was floored! As Peter Serracino Inglott commented, “a decision that rightly belongs to the client began now to be attributed to the architect.”
I was again floored when I read about a public consultation exercise made by the foreign consultants who have been asked to draw up a plan of the actions needed to implement Vision 2015. On that occasion, the Prime Minister was reported to have said: “Vision 2015 requires solid investment in our infrastructure including the supply of energy. Anybody who tells me not to expand Delimara not to create controversy cannot tell me to go for Vision 2015.” (The Times, 24 March).
This is nothing short of pathetic. What is controversial is not the decision to extend Delimara but the choice of the plant to be installed in this extension. Anyone who thinks that we do not need to expand Delimara Power Station must be nuts, and as visionless as everybody in Malta and Gozo was last Monday evening when Boiler No. 7 at the Marsa plant broke down again, triggering a shutdown of the whole electricity system. So the Prime Minister was stating the obvious; but he was also spinning it to make it mean something else altogether!
The fact that we desperately need to expand Delimara does not justify the Prime Minister’s decision to assume political responsibility for the environmentally flawed technical decision taken by whoever chose the bid for this extension with a plant that uses Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO). Obviously those people could not really care one hoot about the whole notion of Vision 2015 that the Prime Minister is so keen on.
Incidentally, if this vision was launched in 2007, how come we are still forging out plans for its implementation when we are already over one third through the eight year period between its launching and its realisation? If the Prime Minister himself – or his office – has been dragging his feet in such a manner about the vision that he wants to share with the Maltese people, it is hardly surprising that a recent MaltaToday survey revealed that 89% of respondents polled have no idea what Vision 2015 is, and only 9.6% hinted at a correct answer when asked to specify what this vision entails.
The reports in the press on what these consultants are recommending to government remind me of the old humorous definition of a consultant as one who borrows your watch and then gets paid to tell you the time.
But back to how the chosen way of executing the needed Delimara extension does not fit in with Vision 2015 – to follow up an association made by the Prime Minister himself – I make some rhetorical questions:
• Was the area to be taken up by the emission abatement equipment ignored when the area to be taken by the new plant was indicated by Enemalta and, therefore, does the proposed plant require an even higher footprint than officially stated?
• Were the costs of the increase in chimney height, an extra container stacker and a truck weighing bridge ignored in the calculations of the cost of the chosen bidder?
• Is it true that there are only few references available internationally for the proposed flue gas cleaning technology in combination with the type of plant to be bought and that therefore the emission abatement system cannot but be an unproven prototype? Is it true that the chosen contractor had crossed out the word ‘guaranteed’ in all emission guarantees schedules in his bid? Is it true that the consultants assessing the bid were careful to use the word ‘plausible’ as regards the claimed reduction of emissions by the proposed technology?
• Is it true that the production of some €2 million worth of potable water as a by-product of the plant proposed in a refused bid was completely ignored?
• Is it true that the issue on the export of the huge amounts of toxic wastes produced by the chosen plant has never been satisfactorily settled?
I do not expect the Prime Minister to answer these questions, but perhaps the Auditor General is still in time to check the veracity of these allegations.
My point, of course, is that the PM’s spin depicting the extension to Delimara Power station as having a bearing on Vision 2015 was an auto-goal of incredible proportions. The Prime Minister is justifiably proud of the very idea of Vision 2015 but this notion must be taken by all on board. In my opinion the technical ‘gurus’ who actually made the decision on the type of plant to be bought do not share this vision. Having assumed the political responsibility for their completely mistaken decision, the Prime Minister has had no way out except by resorting to blurring the environmental issues that were ignored in the awarding of the relevant contract.
Just because I do not agree – on environmental grounds – on the chosen plant for the Delimara Power Station extension, I do not lose the right to look forward to the realisation of Vision 2015, as the Prime Minister implied. Indeed, my mental picture of Vision 2015 does necessarily include the extension of the Delimara plant, but certainly not in the way that Enemalta has decided to go about it.
As yet ‘Vision 2015’ is not something that is shared by the people. There is no popular feeling that the country is striving to achieve it and that most of us are therefore not doing anything towards its realisation. In these circumstances, it is government – and particularly the Prime Minister – that has to give the lead and ensure that ‘Vision 2015’ is owned by the majority of citizens. The Prime Minister, of course, has been beleaguered by political woes on all fronts and, perhaps, has not had the time to tackle this challenge head-on.
My only hope is that we have not already missed the bus, as the woefully wrong decision on the Delimara Power Station extension seems to indicate.
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