Electro tricks and trickery

Now it’s full-out war on the battlefields about electric and water tariffs.. I am hardly an expert in spin or in matters electrical. I can hardly change a bulb without a frenzied call to the power station for them to switch off their mainframes for fear of me exploding us to kingdom come. But the more I look at the proposals from the Labour confraternity the more I wish I could understand them. Or rather the more I wish their plans were doable and not pie in the sky.

Ok so if we are going to have savings wow let’s get on with it. In fact if it was such a great idea why didn’t they ask Government to implement it— true maybe their plans would have been copied but we’d already be saving a few hundreds per household. If Joseph did that he’d have shown us he really loves us all. Moreover if the economy could save so many millions, double and triple wow.

I love it when elections turn on such bright sparks in our firmament. But—oh damn those buts always butt in—there are always some problems in beautiful dreams. Usually they remain just that: or worse still they turn into real-life nightmares. And promises of resigning won’t solve too many things. After all CET was in place for less than 2 years but the economy was given a horrendously negative jolt just to prove that electoral promises—getting rid of VAT—could be kept. Prime resignations after the débacles do not right too many wrongs.

One Fenech Tonio seems to have found a few loopholes in the Labour energy strategy. He came up with enough holes in their proposal to make any sane man who did the proposing go into hiding. Yes, the man Konrad and whoever believed he has enough nous to come up with such a grand scheme, should scram, go and reside somewhere far away. But even if all this is laid aside—the amazingly strange things the proposers came up with are that too many unfathomable things are in the pipeline. All the proposals hinge on private entrepreneurs turning up and taking up the proposal. They also hinge on the same private entrepreneurs guaranteeing prices for 10 years. Oh yes, and pigs will run a marathon and Lance Armstrong never cheated.

Strangely enough the MEA, MHRA and the Developers’ Ass. all seem to be in agreement with the proposals as presented by Labour. No words of caution regarding all avenues of transparency, EU rules and tendering were expressed by these supposed guardians of our country’s well-being. No one said—we are interested but show us the real beef. No, it was more like let’s give the LP carte blanche. These associations now sound more like braying asses than groups trying hard to get a good deal for Malta. I will not be bold enough to say that the proposals are not doable but please convince us that enough homework has been done. Saying that the PN is in a panic is not enough to counter what Tonio Fenech pointed out. Prove him wrong and I’d be the first one to say hurray to these revolutionary proposals.

The president of one of the associations is reported to have said that unless there are alternatives to the Labour Party plan, then this is the only way forward.

Erm excuse me but if the plan is built on fallacies and will result in even costlier tariffs for your hotels and my house then I’d rather stick with what we have. It might be an old donkey we have to drive us to our destination but at least I know he can take me and I know at what cost—roughly.

If the cost of gas goes up then who in his mad chambers will guarantee such prices for ten whopping years. Wars, famine, drought and climate change and a hundred other events might alter a few scenarios. What will happen if the companies that undertake the plans as proposed then file for bankruptcy? Who will foot the bill if they cannot supply us with electricity? Will we just shut down and close our hotels and restaurants?

Let’s be truly objective and ask Labour to prove to all us sceptics that their plans are really feasible. They have definitely done something for the good of the country by starting a national debate on this subject. Pity they kept these plans under wraps and maybe too late in the day to have a proper, objective debate.

The last thing I want to do is risk what we have by trying out a system and a plan that might end up being a bigger millstone round our neck. The age of trying out and failing is way over. Too many countries have gone that way and are now facing long-term despair and social unrest. Let’s be honest and only praise what is truly for the good of us all.