The issues surrounding the Delimara power station extension tender will not go away because it was debated in the House of Representatives on a motion of urgency. Despite warning rumbles inside his ranks, the Prime Minister seems determined to implement the extension contract with what seems to be indecent haste.
He ignored criticism of how Enemalta awarded the relevant tender. That was a political decision the government was entitled to take, even though it can come back to haunt it as non-political issues mature.
Citing urgency after much dragging of feet over the extension, and forecast as a basic requirement to enhance Enemalta's generating capacity relative to rising requirements years ago, the government did not bother to wait for rounded technical impact assessment analysis before granting the contract. Nor did it suggest to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority to be prudent and wait for the outcome of an inquiry being carried out by the Auditor General.
The government will probably get its way. Mepa will approve the physical aspects of the extension. The Auditor General will find aspects of the contract liable to criticism and open to further questions, but will not pin down definite proof of corruption. The government will turn a baleful eye upon those of its backbenchers who dared to implicitly join the Labour opposition in some of its criticisms, and it will lambast Labour for the raucous it has raised.
The extension will be built, and will start to operate. It will be then that the detailed criticisms made against it will surface one by one. Allegations of corruption may not be an issue. But technical warnings will be recalled. For the government and Enemalta have not been at all convincing that the technology chosen and the fuel to be utilised in the extension are of the right type. It could turn out that they are pretty much of the wrong type.
Commencement of operations will also show which estimate of hazardous waste to be produced in the process of generating additional power was right. If the much higher estimate proves to be the case, the resulting dearer operating cost and sharper environmental danger will surface. Should - God forbid - there is an accident related to the transportation of the hazardous waste from the power station, the effects could be disastrous.
None of that may happen. But the technical objections raised to the technology and fuel to be applied by the successful bidder leave much apprehension about the future. Governments are concerned about the present. Tomorrow only counts as a hope that they will be re-elected. If they are not, the defeated members will either stay on in opposition to justify themselves with all sorts of excuses, or go back into private life to do their own thing.
It will be left to the new government to pick up the pieces.
The Labour opposition is attacking various aspects of the extension contract at a political level. That is what oppositions do, as Nationalists who do not suffer from political amnesia will remember from their own years in that role. Nevertheless, Labour's main worry should be the state of affairs it is going to inherit at the Delimara power station, not to mention elsewhere.
It will be small consolation to it that it shall probably fall upon a Labour government to inaugurate the Valletta entrance projects. These, we were assured by the Prime Minister, will start later this year. No doubt there will be further assurances regarding when they will be finished. Lawrence Gonzi and his team, whoever forms it, will bust more than a gut to try to finish them before the next general election is held.
No one will be surprised if they do not succeed, at least not in total. Public projects have a habit of overshooting both their forecast cost and the date for completion.
Another habit is coming into play. The Prime Minister is a very hands-on type of person. He tends to get involved in everything. He reacts quickly to approaches to him, which has its good side. Yet there are not-so-good sides too in his style of administering.
One example: Gonzi conceived the plan to invite Renzo Piano back to come up with a package of proposals over how to rebuild City Gate, to locate brand new premises for the House of Representatives and revitalise the old Opera House site. He discussed directly with the renowned architect. It is not inconceivable that one reason why he did that was to transmit to Piano political and financial parameters for the three-in-one project.
Accept that, then, up to that initial stage. Now Gonzi has let it be known that he is to meet Piano yet again because he has some things still to discuss with him. Very coyly, he would not say what they are.
Whatever they might be, I have a niggling doubt: Is it the role of a prime minister to discuss directly on technical and related matters with someone commissioned to do a technical job? Dom Mintoff used to think it was, and did not always make a great dish out of it. I had rather hoped Gonzi was made of more sensible stuff.