Updated - Adds government statement
Labour leader Joseph Muscat said today that the government's decision to seek an extension of the life of the Marsa power station was humiliating for the country and a further reflection of incompetence.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said last week that the government would hold talks with the EU for an extension of the old power station's life. He said the extension was required because the interconnector to Sicily would not be completed on time.
Dr Muscat said the government had been promising for a quarter of a century that it would close the Marsa power station. It even agreed a deadline with the EU. Yet now it was not meeting the commitments given to both the people and the EU.
In such circumstances, how could the governemnt be believed when it spoke about the Delimara power station extension?
Labour, he said, was committed to the Enemalta workers and the government's incompetence should not threaten their jobs.
This was the government which had turned Enemalta from a profit-making enterprise into one which was practically bankrupt, with a debt of €500 million.
Extending the life of the Marsa power station would be detrimental economically, and it would be detrimental to the people of Marsa and the south of Malta because of harmful emissions. Maybe the people of Marsa did not write frequently to The Times, but they could not be forgotten and substandard services by the government could not be tolerated, Dr Muscat said.
He said this humiliation for the country was the result of the government having delayed the granting of the Delimara power station contract until emission standards were changed. Had those standards not been changed, BWSC would not have been eligible for the contract.
The cherry on the cake, however, was that the plant equipment which had been selected for Delimara was harmful for the environment, harmful for the people's health, and harmful for taxpayers.
There were also delays in the project for an undersea cable link to the European power grid, with Italy not having yet granted planning permission for the landing site in Sicily.
Dr Muscat also hit out at the government for not making forward purchases which would have kept fuel prices in check.
He insisted that it was simply not true that the latest increase in fuel prices was the result of the upheaval in Libya, as Enemalta claimed within days of the troubles starting.
And it was shameful, Dr Muscat said, that half of what motorists paid at the pump actually went for duties and taxes.
FINANCE MINISTRY STATEMENT
In a reaction, the Finance Ministry said the Marsa power station would be closed, despite Dr Muscat's campaign to stop the extension of the Delimara power station and his attempts to sow doubts about the undersea connector to the European power grid.
The extension to Delimara power station and the interconnector were vital for Marsa to be closed down and for Malta to enjoy cleaner air.
Had Dr Muscat had his way about Delimara, it would not have been possible for Marsa to be closed down.
The ministry said that even though the old power station would be closed down, measures would be taken in the interim to ensure that emissions were cleaner.
On fuels, the ministry said consumer prices had gone up because the price of the last consignment bought by Enemalta had gone up.