I have just discovered that the glorious Government of Malta (Hail! Hail!) is about to spend an undisclosed sum of OUR money to convince us all that its choice of technology for the Delimara power station is the best thing to have hit these islands since the legendary shipwreck, in AD 60, of St Pollocks.
And rightly so! For contrary to various (and libellous) rumours to the contrary, I myself have never doubted the enormous advantages this amazing contract has to offer to present and future generations of Maltese citizens. That’s right, folks. Don’t pay any attention to all those prophets of doom and gloom, who see nothing but ‘corruption’, ‘crisis’ and ‘conflicts of interest’ everywhere they look. To all these Jeremiahs I have only one thing to say: Luqa monument! (‘U int taf xi jfisser...’)
If you ask me (as indeed you should), this is more than just the deal of the century. It is sheer economic genius, and you have to have the business acumen of a mentally retarded warthog not to immediately appreciate the huge financial advantages this contract will entail for certain Enemalta emplo... I mean, for the entire country as a whole.
But then again, we all know how unfair life can be at times. It doesn’t matter that a handful of individuals have concentrated only on their own remuneration while supposedly negotiating a contract on behalf of the Maltese taxpayer. Instead of praising the remarkable skills of the brokers involved, all some people can ever do is moan and groan about how ‘the interest of the many’ has been overlooked in favour of the astronomical profits acquired by the few.
How utterly selfish of them, I must say. Always thinking of their own common good as stakeholders in the country’s administration, instead of the only thing that has ever really mattered – i.e., the hard-earned financial reward of a couple of enterprising wheeler-dealers.
Hardly surprising, then, that the government would now dig its hands even deeper into our pockets, in order to pay a pre-ordained spin-doctor for the privilege of forcing this deal down our collective throats.
Hence my extreme disappointment at not having found out about this advertising campaign sooner. For who better than myself – a long-standing apologist for the present government’s economic policy – to convince a sceptical public of the need to put aside their selfish interests, and instead prostrate themselves for the greater glory of Gonzi?
But sadly – and unlike a few PR agencies I can think of – I am not surgically attached to the same government’s rectum, and so cannot realistically expect any of these lucrative contracts to get channelled in my direction. (Quite rightly, I hasten to add. After all, what on earth would be the point in being Prime Minister, if you didn’t get to personally pick and choose whom to reward with other people’s money, and whom to leave out in the cold?)
But never mind: seeing as I lack the close connections to any source ‘higher up in the political hierarchy’ (ahem), allow me to instead volunteer a little friendly advice to all those lucky buggers who will soon be rolling in MORE taxpayer’s money than they have already swilled.
If it were I to stage-manage this entire exercise in political spin, here is how I would set about doing it:
STEP ONE Dispel all those utterly dishonest rumours doing the rounds at the moment – you know, that the entire tendering process was somehow ‘vitiated’ by ‘shortcomings’ and/or ‘irregularities’ unearthed by the Auditor General in his report.
‘Shortcomings’? ‘Irregularities’? ‘Mediterranean Columns’, more like it. Honestly, I cannot sufficiently overstress the point that – contrary to what anyone who actually read the report will immediately confirm – the Auditor General never came to any such conclusion at all.
And for a very simple reason, too. How on earth could he possibly have concluded that there was ‘corruption’ in the tendering process... when none of the persons he interviewed actually answered any of his questions?
Yes, folks, it’s that simple. No answers = no possibility of actually acquiring any information = only one conclusion possible: NO HARD EVIDENCE FOR CORRUPTION.
End of bloody story.
But of course, people will continue to deliberately misunderstand the point. Just like they continue to unfairly point fingers at Joe Mizzi: the former Enemalta employee/BWSC representative who tried so valiantly to collaborate with the Auditor’s investigation, but ultimately (being only human, after all) failed.
Come on, guys. Give the man a break. He suffers from memory problems, for crying out loud. That qualifies as a health issue, and it is therefore ‘politically incorrect’ to even think that he might have been putting it on just to avoid incriminating himself.
And besides: so what, if the same Mizzi made anywhere up to €3, possibly €4 million in commissions from the selfsame deal? Like I said, the man’s got health problems. He probably needs that money to buy himself a ‘memory enhancer’. (These things are expensive, you know...)
STEP TWO Having convinced everyone that there was no corruption of any kind involved in the deal, let us now explain the enormous advantages of relying entirely on an untried and untested technology, for something as absolutely vital as nationwide electricity provision.
It works like this. In case no one’s yet noticed, Malta has for the past... oh, around 70 years... relied exclusively on tried-and-tested technology for its power requirements.
And guess what? We still can’t guarantee ourselves an uninterrupted power supply... as everyone and his salva vita would surely have realised on Good Friday last month.
So I ask you all: where on earth is the logic in acquiring a technology that already has been tried and tested in another country... when that’s exactly what we already have, and therefore know from experience that it DOESN’T ACTUALLY WORK??
No, indeed. It makes infinitely more sense to take a wild gamble on something totally new and unpredictable: something which, for all we know, might even blow up right in our faces, the moment we flip that ‘ON’ switch. After all, what’s the worst-case scenario? Only that we’ll wind up where we all already are: i.e., stuck in the dark, without any guarantee of a permanent power supply in future.
STEP THREE In all this talk of corruption, we are overlooking the enormous environmental advantages this new technology has to offer.
It’s amazing that you still need people like me to inform you about these things, but the Delimara extension is actually a win-win situation for all concerned.
For one thing, if it turns out that the €200 million technology doesn’t work... well, all it means in practice is that we won’t actually be burning any Heavy Fuel Oil in future (which, let’s face it, was always the most polluting option available). The environmental advantages of such a situation are obvious to one and all; and to these must be added the failure of Enemalta to secure a penalty-clause in the contract for BWSC itself.
In other words, the firm responsible for installing the turbines will be under no obligation whatsoever to either fix or replace any malfunctioning parts. What better guarantee that the resulting €200 million extension will not cause any environmental damage whatsoever?
If, on the other hand, the experimental technology DOES work without a hitch... well, the resulting health risks posed by five container-loads of highly toxic waste a day – all of which would have to be driven through heavily populated parts of Malta on their way to being exported – would almost certainly result in a dramatic drop in life expectancy among the Maltese population.
Those of us who have studied economics will know that shortening the average lifespan is the only surefire way to reduce existing strains on the burgeoning pensions crisis – a factor which will greatly improve our socio-economic prospects in the longer term.
Meanwhile, I need hardly add that in the event of a nationwide environmental catastrophe, the resulting sudden drop in population will work wonders to considerably reduce Malta’s carbon footprint... thus automatically improving the environment for anyone lucky enough to have survived.
But of course, it is only to be expected that an increasingly egocentric and ungrateful population will point out the measly little fly in the ointment... for instance, by blaming the inevitable increase in respiratory diseases among their children on the rise in national emission levels – increased specifically to meet the requirements of the same untested BWSC technology.
Well, what can I say? The selfishness of some people knows no bounds. Who cares if a few more kids die of lung cancer here and there? People are making money out of this deal, for crying out loud...
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