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A woman who lives near Delimara power station recounted at a Labour Party activity in Marsaxlokk this evening how eight of her nine children suffer from asthma, while her father had died of cancer, as had her sister aged 55 and another relative at 23. The woman said one of her sons, aged three, also has cancer.

The woman was handed the microphone by Labour leader Joseph Muscat, who said her participation was not planned and he only got to know of her plight during the activity.

He said that such health problems were enough justification for the investment Labour was planning so as to convert electricity generation to  gas-firing power stations.

Earlier in the activity, the president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, Tony Zahra, said this evening that unless the Nationalist Party could offer an option for the reduction of power tariffs, there was no choice but to take up the Labour proposal.

Tony ZahraTony Zahra

Speaking at a discussion called 'testimonials under the dome' organised by the Labour Party in Marsaxlokk, Mr Zahra said the association had established that the power tariffs were the second highest in the EU and this stemmed from inefficiency at production level.

"We need a solution, I hope there is more than one solution," Mr Zahra said.

"If there is only one solution, it is obvious that we will choose this."

He said the Maltese had to wait for the Pope or the Queen for the roads to be surfaced. In this case, they had to wait for the general election.

"Maybe we should have one every six months," he said.

Marika Micallef, from The Danish Village, like Mr Zahra, said the increased electricity costs had sometimes placed her organisation with its back to the wall.

She said the cost of water and electricity had become the cancer of the economy, saying that she hoped that there would be more proposals that would be worked out and feasible.

Labour leader Joseph Muscat said the Labour Party was subjected to an onslaught, primarily from the government, concerning its proposal to reduce water and electricity bills, but there was now a consensus that the tariffs could be reduced.

He commented sarcastically on the position of the Nationalist Party, which, he said, had gone from saying that reducing water and electricity bills was not possible and calling the proposal the gimmick of the millennium to first saying that they would reduce the bills themselves and then that the PL proposal could be implemented but not within the costs and timeframes given by the party.

“I insist that it can be done at the price we said and within the timeframes we laid down, but it’s still positive that now there is a consensus that this can be done,” he said.

Hydrologist Marco Cremona described industry’s complaints about the water and electricity bills as legitimate, saying that the current prices were unacceptable.

He described Labour’s proposal as interesting but argued that he was disappointed with the part that concerned water. He argued that the price of water was already ridiculously low and that reducing it further went against the investment that needed to be made in the sector.

He also insisted that treated sewage should be used it for agriculture, but this needed investment. One had to wonder where this money would come from.

Dr Muscat said bills were to be reduced from the costs not from the Water Services Corporation. In fact, the reduction in water bills could have been higher,  but Labour decided to keep it at five per cent precisely because of what Mr Cremona was saying.

 

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