A recycled stream of cheap words

Rural Affairs and Environment Minister George Pullicino and the government contractor, WasteServ (Malta) Ltd, have repeatedly been lauding the existing plans to part-demolish and upgrade the Sant'Antnin recycling plant in a way as to accommodate four new plants (a material recovery facility, a technical treatment plant, a digestion plant and a composting plant) and be able to treat more tonnes of waste in line with looming European obligations.

According to Mr Pullicino and WasteServ spokesmen the proposed development is expected to lead to an improvement in the environmental, social and economic impacts experienced [by residents] from the operation of the current plant. They are trying to lead people into believing that this project, which will increase the amount of waste to be treated by the plant in annual tonnage terms, will contribute to a better standard of living to the residents of Marsascala and Zejtun.

The Committee Against The Proposed Recycling Plant, made up of representatives of seven local councils, two political parties and various independent Marsascala-based NGOs, has, justifiably, led a fully-fledged campaign against the proposed project, claiming that this project will leave a deleterious impact on the environment, economy, social fibre, safety and health of the residents of the area.

Despite the very limited resources of the committee and the scathing attack led against it by the government, this committee has succeeded in attracting the support of the residents of the area, independently of their political creeds and beliefs.

The various issues at stake - the proposed plan itself, the safety aspects vis-à-vis the residents and the sort of decision-making process undertaken by Mepa, to name a few - all confirm our belief that the planned project should never be given the green light. At the bottom line, however, there is principally one question: whether the government's pledges of an amelioration of the residents' standard of living can ever be taken seriously given the repeated assurances cheaply issued in the past.

On February 18, 1992 the Prime Minister of the time, Eddie Fenech Adami, while visiting the Sant'Antnin plant a few months before being fully completed, had said that "the plant would solve almost all environmental problems connected with waste when it becomes fully operation in a few weeks time". Thirteen years later, WasteServ has categorically stated that the plant "has been beset with a series of technical and environmental problems throughout its history and the quality of the finished product is unsatisfactory". So much for government credibility!

The then assistant director of works and architect in charge of the project, Tony Abela, on the same day had said that the initial handling and treatment capacity of municipal solid wastes was earmarked to reach 85,000 tons a year. Furthermore, he had projected that this amount had to rise to 120,000 tons a year by the year 2000! Any comment on the absolute failure of the declared goals is futile.

The problem of revolting smells that originated from the Sant'Antnin plant was dealt with by the government of the time in a precisely identical way - uttering a stream of cheap words instead of acting in time to solve the problem. A government MP, Mario Galea, for instance, on February 24, 1994 had gone as far as proclaiming that the smells coming from the plant had been eliminated, only to de facto retract his words six months later when, conjunctly with the then Parliamentary Secretary Joe Psaila Savona, he had issued a statement saying that he and Dr Psaila Savona were "in continuous contact with the authorities not only to communicate to them the justified complaints of the Marsascala residents, but also to be informed about what was being done to find a solution once and for all".

The mayhem and confusion of the government reached its apex on October 27, 1994 when the then Parliamentary Secretary Stanley Zammit had proclaimed that in the forthcoming budget the government intended to allocate Lm1 million precisely to solve the smells problem. On September 3, 1996, nearly two years later, the same government, this time through its most hardworking minister of all times, Francis Zammit Dimech, was still speaking about finding a permanent solution to the smells problem and pledging to be ready to allocate Lm6 million to solve the issue!

Dr Psaila Savona had, on November 27, 1995, gone as far as telling Parliament that one of the four options which were on the table was the transfer, lock, stock and barrel, of the Sant'Antnin plant to another site, presumably somewhere not adjacent to residential areas. Ten years later, the present government is not only ruling out any transfer of the plant to an unpopulated site but is applauding a planning process in which the site selection exercise was done in such a flawed way that makes one wonder.

As the honest reader would tell, this problem of atrocious smells was only solved when the Labour Party took office in 1996, with the then Foreign Affairs and Environment Minister George Vella swiftly but carefully spearheading the process. Unfortunately, following the 1998 snap election, the nasty odours again started to occasionally haunt Marsascala and until a few weeks ago I, for one, had to cover my nostrils with my hands while driving through the supposedly tourist village of Marsascala.

Mr Pullicino and WasteServ are once more resorting to the tactic of issuing a stream of cheap words and promises and using yet again regal adjectives to describe the planned recycling plant's part-demolition and the construction of four inner plants. Apart from the multitude of defects inherent in the application per se and the faulty raison d'etre of the project, the issue of good governance is fundamental and recent history would justify the application of the "once bitten, twice shy" golden rule.

An integral part of politics is credibility and, definitely on this issue, Mr Pullicino's government has none.

Dr Bonnici is a Labour councillor for Marsascala.

owenbonnici@onvol.net