Labour leader Joseph Muscat said today that allegations made in a letter by an Israeli company which had submitted a bid for an extension of the Delimara power station should be of concern to taxpayers and all those who held the environment dear.
Dr Muscat told a press conference that the Israeli company (Hutny-Bateman) in a letter sent to the Prime Minister and the House Public Accounts Committee, was saying that its €194m bid to install a combined cycle turbine which could operate on diesel or gas was the cheapest and cleanest of three bids made after a call for tenders and would take the smallest space within the Delimara power station. The other bids were submitted by BWSC and MAN.
In contrast, the bid which the government appeared to be inclined to accept was the most expensive and would create waste which the government then would have to export.
The Israeli company was claiming that rival bids would cost between €16m and €41 million more. Those plants would run on heavy fuel and would need further spending of between €10m and €27m to be converted to operate on gas.
Should the government accept either of the bids for the heavy fuel plants, the Delimara chimney would also have to be raised by a further 30 metres.
It was also worrying, Dr Muscat said, that this Israeli company was alleging that the rival bids had only become eligible for the call for tenders after the government, half way through the tendering process, changed the law so as to allow an increase in emissions.
Would the government go for bids which were more expensive and more environmentally harmful?
Dr Muscat said the Prime Minister had lost control on the environment and was not delivering on his promises, including MEPA reform.
The fact that the government now wanted to set up an incinerator confirmed how its waste management policy had failed.
The PL was still awaiting environmental and health impact assessments as a result of the incinerators.
The PL, he said, was calling on the government to tap EU funds for environment projects and, in line with the European socialist group, it was calling for the creation of ‘green jobs’.