
Saturday, 11th October 2008
Utilities charge for Catholic schools unfair
Austin Gatt, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications, states, with reference to the proposed hike in water and electricity tariffs, that "What we consume, we have to pay for." (October 7).
Yet, I find the fact that charging a commercial rate to organisations offering a service for free to the local community, a contradiction of this statement.
Could someone, or maybe the minister himself, enlighten me on why Catholic schools, which provide an invaluable service, at a very cheap cost to the government, are charged commercial rates for the water and electricity they consume?
A school which does not charge students for the service it delivers is not a commercial entity and I cannot understand how it can be labelled as such. It is the parents of children who attend these schools who are paying these bills through the donations they give.
These parents are being forced to subsidise Enemalta as well as the telephone companies since this service is also charged at a commercial rate.
Dr Gatt also states that the government last year gave "€68 million to Enemalta in subsidies". I'm curious to know how much Church schools paid Enemalta last year and how much of that was an extra charge, or should I say subsidy, slapped on them because someone who has no idea what "commercial" means has labelled them so. This is nothing short of daylight robbery of the parents' hard-earned cash.







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Comments
Scandinavian countries, and others such as Holland, have made tremendous leaps forward in the harnessing of natural energy sources, including solar, and they hardly have any sunshine for most of the year. Yet our pathetic Govt has spent the last 20 years literally wasting away taxpayers’ money.
Enemalta were boasting that they actually installed photovoltaic cells on a couple of office roofs, wow, big deal.
Dr. Gonzi committed himself to wind turbines in the sea, totally disregarding the depth of water around us. We have a Govt made up of incompetents who think that as long as they make a statement here and there, then their job is done. Wake up guys!
But perhaps some want to be more equal than others or suffer from an inverted inferiority complex and do not want their children to mix with the common peoples children.
All the more reason to avoid all kinds of waste of electricity in Church school buildings, don't you think?