Government to launch advertising blitz to convince consumers that Delimara extension will ‘pollute less’ than Marsa – omitting to mention that the emissions limit was raised in 2009, and that the contract is under investigation by the Auditor General
KARL STAGNO-NAVARRA
Government is set to spend thousands in taxpayers’ money on a drive to sell the Delimara Power Station extension to the public: despite the fact that the same contract is mired in controversy, and is still under investigation by the Auditor General.
A number of TV personalities have reportedly been approached and are now being lined up to front an aggressive media campaign, aimed at promoting the ‘environmental’ aspect of the €200 million Heavy Fuel Oil project that was controversially awarded to Scandinavian conglomerate BWSC, already implicated in numerous overseas corruption allegations.
The new plant will also be producing 14,000 tonnes of toxic sludge a year, which will have to be exported at a significant cost.
Sources have confirmed with MaltaToday that the campaign is being designed to sell the idea of the new plant as one that ‘pollutes much less’ than today’s power station – hiding the fact that the level of national emissions had been raised un-announced to meet the HFO technology specifications, at a time when the adjudication process of the project tender was already under way.
Labour MP Evarist Bartolo, the former education minister who first alleged foul play during the procurement process of the plant extension, dubbed the advertising campaign “disgusting.”
Speaking to MaltaToday last night, Bartolo said that the exercise is tantamount to government attempting to “sell snow to the Eskimos.”
He explained that BWSC is set to turn Malta into its own guinea pig, and experiment its emission abatement equipment which it will be installing in the new power station to minimise the pollution that will be generated by the heavy fuel oil plant.
While adding that BWSC needed to propose such an equipment to have its bid qualify for the contract it was awarded, Evarist Bartolo explained that in the new power station at Delimara, BWSC proposes to use a combination of anti-pollution equipment that has not been tried and tested anywhere else in the world – though to reassure us, Enemalta hints that “something similar was used in Korea.”
Anger at the news of this campaign was also expressed by Labour MP and spokesperson on Enemalta Marlene Pullicino who said that government should rather spend money on precipitators on the Delimara chimneys and to speed up the connection to the European grid.
As Auditor General Anthony C, Mifsud continues his probe into allegations of irregularities over the multi-million euro contract, Maltese middleman Joe Mizzi – the former Enemalta employee whose leaked email gave rise to serious allegations of misconduct – continues to lie low and make himself unseen.
Joe Mizzi reportedly pocketed €4 million in commissions for having clinched the multi-million deal for the Danish firm. He was referred to as “intelligence working in fifth gear” by a satisfied BWSC official... and as an “empty chair” by Joseph Muscat, who last December consented to meet two senior-ranking BWSC executives who flew to Malta in a bid to allay public outcry over Danish media reports on alleged cases of bribery committed in various other countries to win contracts.
But Mizzi himself never turned up for the meeting, and BWSC’ chief executive Soren Berkholt distanced himself from his own firm’s agent, insisting that Mizzi is “his own man”.
E-mail conversations between Joseph Mizzi and BWSC officials – and copied to sales and marketing director Martin Kok Jensen – speak of the need to “tap into higher political sources” in order to secure the contract.
The award of the tender to Danish firm BWSC, has attracted controversy also because the new turbine will be powered by a diesel engine, to be converted in future to a combined cycle gas turbine.
A rival bidder, Israeli firm Bateman, insists its combined cycle gas turbine was cheaper than the BWSC offer. Bateman however never formally appealed the Department of Contracts’ decision to award the contract to BWSC, and instead filed a judicial protest in court.
In the meantime, an election dossier compiled by the Enemalta management on March 6, 2008 gave strong hints as to the national energy provider’s apparent bias in favour of a gas turbine. Why the Corporation’s technical evaluation board then opted for a diesel engine turbine is a moot point.
Enemalta has presented its reasons for opting for diesel, maintaining this was the most economically advantageous offer in the long term.
However, the Opposition contends that Enemalta effectively asked the government to relax emission limits, and amend the relevant legal notice, thereby allowing BWSC to safely tender for the Delimara extension with its diesel engine technology.
Beyond the technical considerations, the Enemalta dossier is clear on one thing: while gas was considered to be the “only way” for the future development of the power station, the Corporation decided some time before the award of the tender to ditch this route and opt for diesel technology.
Complicating matters for the government is the fact that outgoing Enemalta chairman, Alex Tranter, is a business partner of Nazzareno Vassallo, whose company will be carrying out the civil works for the Delimara extension. Tranter declared this apparent conflict of interest last year.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister faces a parliamentary motion by the Opposition to discuss the controversy surrounding the award of the Delimara, and the issue has therefore also become a bone of contention for the PN parliamentary group.
A number of governments MP’s reportedly confronted Minister Austin Gatt in October with a copy of a Danish newspaper ‘Borsen’, that alleged BWSC had approved funds to be forwarded to public officers in the Philippines in a bid to win a contract.
BWSC’s Soren Berkholt has repeatedly denied the paper’s claims and produced a document that showed how Danish police had dropped the investigations. The same cannot be said for the Philippines, where there was a criminal prosecution connected with a contract awarded to BWCS.
While the PN Parliamentary group has agreed to postpone internal discussions on the Oppositions motion until the Auditor General completes his investigations into the contract process, some government MP’s have privately stressed that they are not ready to vote in favour of government if they know that irregularities have been committed during the adjudication process.
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