Celebrities refuse to endorse Enemalta TV campaign on Delimara power plant
Karl Stagno-Navarra
Four prominent TV personalities did not rise to the bait offered by Enemalta, and have refused to lend their faces to a national advertising campaign intended to promote the ‘environmentally better’ Delimara power station extension project. Government is set to spend thousands in taxpayers money to sell the €200 million Heavy Fuel Oil project to the public, which is mired in controversy and still under investigation by the Auditor General over allegations of irregularities during the adjudication process. TV personalities have turned down an invitation by Enemalta to endorse the Delimara power station extension project by lending their faces and names to a national advertising campaign, intended to sell the controversial multi-million project as ‘environmentally’ better than Marsa.
Journalist Miriam Dalli and popular presenters John Bundy, Alfred Zammit and Joseph Chetcuti have all refused an offer put to them through a production company engaged by Enemalta, stating that it would be hypocritical of them to endorse such a project when the technology chosen for the plant is Heavy Fuel Oil, which will also produce some 14,000 tonnes of toxic sludge a year, to be exported at a significant cost.
All presenters conduct programmes on the Labour Party owned One TV, the same party that has asked the Auditor General to investigate alleged irregularities into the adjudication process of the €200 million project.
Their refusal to front the campaign will now leave production company 26th Frame with personalities from PN run NET TV and State owned PBS, creating an obvious inbuilt ‘bias’ to the campaign.
Through this campaign, 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 following allegations of irregularities in the tendering process.
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 unannounced 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.” He added that that the exercise is tantamount to government attempting to “sell snow to the Eskimos.”
Bartolo said 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 HFO plant.
While adding that BWSC needed to propose such an equipment to have its bid qualify for the contract it was awarded, 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.”
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
Search:
MALTATODAY
BUSINESSTODAY
Download MaltaToday Sunday issue front page in pdf file format
