Bartolo gives breakdown of power station hazardous waste

Labour MP Evarist Bartolo yesterday gave Parliament a breakdown of the hazardous waste which would be produced by the extension of the Delimara power station, saying that there would also be 10,000 tonnes of water which would be pumped into the sea and continue to do irreparable damage to the area known as il-Ħofra ż-Żgħira.

He said that during the Budget speech, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech had given the impression that the hazardous waste would amount to only 10,000 tonnes. But he countered by saying that the 14,000 tonnes predicted if 0.7 sulphur heavy oil were used would increase to 21,000 tonnes if the thickness of the oil were increased to one.

Apart from the 10,000 tonnes of solid waste, there would also be 15,000 more tonnes from a catalyst that had to be used, and 11 tonnes of chemicals that would be thrown into the sea and which needed to be treated beforehand. Moreover, there would be 993 tonnes of oil sludge, which would either be incinerated locally or exported, and another eight tonnes of silt.

Mr Bartolo said that in spite of being intimidated, he would still be talking about these issues. He was not representing the south of Malta in Parliament, but as an MP he had a duty to safeguard the interests of all citizens.

He said the irregularities that took place in the process increased corruption. All international companies involved in the project were involved in corruption in other countries. These included BWSC, Brazilla and Lahmeyer International, the latter being blacklisted by the World Bank for refusing to cooperate in investigations of corruption cases that it was involved in.

He asked whether Lahmeyer had been screened before being selected as Enemalta’s advisor.

Mr Bartolo said that the PN had what he called “the JS list”, which included contractors who were given public contracts and then would, in turn, contribute financially to the PN coffers.

He criticised the government for proposing a budget expenditure of €270 million on education, which was much smaller than the €403 million paid in interest on public debt. The vote for Mcast had not only decreased but the sum spent had been much less than that estimated.

Mr Bartolo said that while university undergraduate courses and examinations were free of charge, Mcast students had to pay €1,008 for a five-year course to obtain a BTech Higher National diploma from foreign awarding institutions. This was happening when the majority of students at Mcast came from less well-to-do families compared with those attending university.

The government should provide locally-designed courses and examinations at Mcast while ensuring external quality assurance of courses. There were locally-based institutes which were interested in providing these courses, as the avionics course had shown.

Mr Bartolo said 40 per cent of students did not continue their education above compulsory school age. Half of them came from low-income families. Serious action was needed to tackle the problem of poverty to enable students to continue their education.

More and more people were living in economic straits. Between October and December last year, 594 workers had lost their job in tourism, community and personal services, business and construction. NSO statistics showed that there were 12,000 unemployed and 175,000 who had been economically inactive in 2009. The majority was in the 15-to-24-year age bracket.

Mr Bartolo referred to the need of gearing education to the 21st century, with e-learning given priority. He criticised the fact that e-learning was not spearheaded by the Education Ministry. The e-learning reform was more important than the primary education reform because the world’s economy was being conditioned by IT technology at least for the next ten years. All stakeholders needed to be included in the e-learning project, which should be used to give Maltese better skills.

He also referred to the fruit and vegetable scheme and criticised the government for decreasing the vote on this scheme from €1.2 million to €200,000 in 2009, increasing to €300,000 this year when this scheme affected 35,000 children of primary school age. Vegetables distributed recently were in a very sorry state.

Mr Bartolo showed his disappointment that Parliament was not being given due importance. He said the Lisbon Treaty had given national parliaments the right to co-legislate with the European Parliament and European institutions as of last January.

MPs were being inundated with EU documents they had to analyse before making their comments and proposals. Maltese MPs were part-timers and the government had made no investment in resources to help MPs scrutinise EU legislative proposals. This meant that instead of becoming a co-legislator the Maltese Parliament was losing its sovereignty and becoming just a ritual. It was more important to have a Parliament which functioned properly than a new parliamentary building, concluded Mr Bartolo.

The rest of the debate will be carried tomorrow.

There are currently 42 applications for funds under EU schemes for the construction of water reservoirs in Malta and Gozo. These requests fall under the scheme for the modernisation of agricultural structures, launched in October 2008.

The information was given by Resources Minister George Pullicino in reply to a parliamentary question by Ċensu Galea (PN).