Enemalta: Figures that don't add up (2)

laurence schembri

Mar 24th 2009, 15:12

Please answer this Mr. Martinelli, when the price of oil was as $12 a barrel in1996, Enemalta was in dead stuck, riddled in debt, could not even pay the wages, the only solution was to put prices up to cure the malady. The rest you know, you have voiced your opinion many a time about it, you didn`t then say then that government have to balance his books, of course not Alfred Sant was the Premier at the time. Instead you all came following Eddie`s cry `Kuxjenza Sociali`, What made you change your mind since? OK, I`ll answer; change of Govrrnment and hypocrisy.

wally vella-zarb

Mar 24th 2009, 14:47

Costs of production also include the contribution of inefficiencies, bad management and other losses to distribution. The people, the unions, and Martinelli's favourite target, the opposition, are quite right in objecting to the ordinary person's having to subsidise such losses. Having a captive market is no justification for what virtually amounts to extortion.

laurence schembri

Mar 24th 2009, 14:22

J. G. Vassallo, St. Julians, a journalist: `figures don`t add up.`
Frank Portelli, St. Paul`s Bay: `figures don`t add up.`
Mr. Martinelli, Toronto, Canada: considers that, The Unions and the Opposition are the root of the problem.

John Grima

Mar 24th 2009, 13:57

@ J Martinelli

While I agree with most of what you said about the pricing of the electricity in Malta, I am sure you will agree that Enemalta must make a certain amount of profit in order to be able to pay for any capital investments that might be needed, like replacing old equipment and so on and so forth.

J Martinelli

Mar 24th 2009, 12:41

Whether Dr. Gatt's figures were right or wrong, they do not represent what is basically wrong with Enemalta's deficits.

What is basically wrong is the fact that hedging or not, the rates which the public was paying were far below cost. Had the rates been correctly established according to the cost of fuel, such disputes would not have arisen.

Now that the rates are supposed to reflect the true costs, the public, unions and the Opposition still complain and expect the government to continue to artificially subsidize the rates! This is the root of the problem.

Monopoly or not, the cost of fuel is what sets the consumer price and although competition is healthy in any industry, the basic cost to the importer remains relatively similar irrespective of who the buyer is. In other words, competition forces the importer to limit its profits in order to remain competitive.

Enemalts does not face competitive forces and as a government entity seeks only to break even and is not profit oriented. Indeed, competition may introduce the 'profit' element which would result in a charge on top of the basic cost of the imported fuel.

Lawrence Mifsud

Mar 24th 2009, 12:14

Cannot imagine how hard it is for the people running such a large business concern to work out a balance sheet; as indeed they should do by Law. When are bills going to be issued at regular intervals?

jcmicallef

Mar 24th 2009, 10:11

don't worry, mr. portelli, we're used to this.

enemalta, like all other parastatal and govt entities, is full of abuse, inefficiencies and defects, and the politicians, who should be managing our interest more professionally, simply cannot justify or put anyhting right - so they play with figures.

it's not dr. gatt's fault - i'm sure things would be much better had he intervened earlier- but the fault of some 30 odd years of (the wrong type of) political interference in the running of these organisations.

so now we shall probably have to privatise to bring the house in order - same as we did with seamalta, posta, drydocks, etc.

if instead of the ppl's money, the minsiters were running their own businesses, would they run them in the same way?

of course not.