Editorial

Maybe the case of the Gozitan woman slapped with a bill for €10,000 for energy consumption, in a house she had not used for 20 years, is not symptomatic of the confusion that has characterised the issue over the revision of the energy rates but it definitely shows that not all is well in Enemalta's court. Just by coincidence, on the very day the Gozitan's case made headlines, the government announced a €70 million plan to replace utility meters with computerised tamper-proof ones.

The financial situation does not look good for Enemalta, a preoccupying matter expected to be made worse by the call that 11 trade unions are making on consumers not to pay their bills until the energy rates are revised. They have been joined, unsurprisingly, by the Labour Party, whose leader's choice of words, in a call to consumers, jarred a bit. He was reported saying that, until the government gave in, the bills should not be paid. "Giving in", in this case, would mean putting extra financial pressure on the corporation. The government stands accused of having handled the tariff revision issue badly, very badly in fact, but in this particular case, the unions and the party should have adopted a more careful approach than this.

The generation of electricity and the production of water require a great deal of money. When so many new difficulties are cropping up, it is unwise on the part of those contesting the tariffs to act in a way that could ultimately do more harm than good. This is not to say they had no right, or reason, especially following the sharp fall in the price of oil, to continue with their campaign to make the government revise the rates downwards, as it is most likely to do next month, when the time for revision comes up. They had, but, considering the state of play today, they could have devised other ways to keep up the momentum in their campaign.

Some cold facts: According to the Infrastructure Ministry, notwithstanding the government's subsidy of close to €64 million, the corporation will be making a heavy loss for the year 2007/2008. In the financial year that ended in December, covering a 15-month period, Enemalta spent €322.6 million to buy 705,746 tonnes of fuel oil and 92,964 tonnes of gasoil. Averaged over 12 months, Enemalta's expenditure last year was 56 per cent higher than in the financial year 2006/2007. The tariffs, introduced retroactively as from October 1, were not even enough to cover the corporation's outlay to buy oil products the previous three months, when oil was still at a record high.

Hopefully, the new tariffs will now be worked out on the basis of figures that have been well verified in advance, so as to avoid creating another issue similar to the one we now have, and which has angered and annoyed so many.

Salt to the wound has been added by the meagre amount allocated to Malta by the European Commission for energy projects. When the island is planning two major energy projects, a connection to the European grid and a wind farm, an allocation of €20 million out of €5 billion is paltry, and falls far short of expectations. Not only that, but the allocation has to be shared with Cyprus. The cost of the two Malta projects is estimated at €200 million. No wonder the government is unhappy with the allocation.