Nowadays, as I drive along the Coast Road, I witness many trucks and shovels moving up and down the slopes of the disused Magħtab dump. Their action is almost gentle compared to the monstrosity of the site they work upon. They caress the sides of the dump laying it ready for its afteruse.
The private sector will not subsidise household or industrial waste for Labour’s sake
It was not long ago that this same site was the source of much heated debate between the then Labour Opposition and the Nationalists in government. The site was a shambles. It burnt day and night and it spread toxins in our midst and Labour encouraged us to continue using it.
Despite some wonderful achievements in waste management, an achievement most of which is attributed to the past directors of WasteServ and its employees, the new minister responsible for waste management is busy investigating WasteServ with no fewer than 10 separate audits going on concurrently! Leo Brincat is fanatic on trying to nail WasteServ to the cross. “This is also politics,” he recently said in Parliament. He is oblivious of the fact that WasteServ has managed to attract millions of euros of EU funding to make the environment we live in healthier and lovelier. He never mumbled a word of gratitude towards the responsible officers who never tired in securing this funding.
Today, the minister feels that the private sector shouldn’t be excluded from WasteServ’s operations. While endorsing the credentials that this organisation has built for itself with this statement, we ought to know which WasteServ activity is Brincat willing to privatise.
During my tenure, WasteServ had already started to privatise activities that were being charged at cost to the waste generator. One example is construction and demolition waste. Today, industry pays the true cost for disposing of this waste and, as a result, the activity moved out of the realm of WasteServ.
Brincat must be thinking along the same lines if he intends to privatise the landfill or the mechanical treatment plant at Sant’Antnin.
The private sector will not subsidise household or industrial waste for Labour’s sake. It will only move in to operate Għallis, the incinerator or Sant’Antnin if householders, livestock breeders and industry pay for the real cost of managing waste.
Brincat wants us to believe that he is unearthing some significant report that he claims WasteServ ignored. This report, drawn up by a consultant at the Ministry of Finance, dated July 2012, was never endorsed by the then Minister of Finance or myself and was still subject to scrutiny by the outgoing board.
The report listed a number of recommendations to minimise the recurrent costs of WasteServ. It recommended:
1) a Pay As You Throw scheme so that householders start paying for disposing of mixed waste;
2) a shredder to tear up waste prior to it being disposed of in a landfill to conserve space and, therefore, excavate less rock;
3) amending the permit of the Sant’Antnin facility so that more waste is received at the plant;
4) scaling down the operations at Sant’Antnin to a single shift with the possibility of making workers redundant and reduce the frequency of waste collection from our homes;
5) privatising the material recovery facility for recyclable waste;
6) reducing the opening times of civic amenity sites;
7) increasing the incinerator fees for the pharmaceutical industry to €500 per tonne;
8) employing more labourers with the civil service so that security services are no longer sourced out;
9) employing all officers rendering a service to WasteServ via a contractor so that mark-ups by the contractor are saved; and
10) reducing environmental monitoring from waste management facilities.
Faced with these recommendations and with a desire to rubbish all that was done by the previous Administration, the minister must express himself loud and clear on whether he agrees with these recommendations and, if yes, when he will be implementing them. Given that he is enthusiastic on the findings of this report, I am assuming that he will now embrace them.
We need to know the minister’s thinking on the issues of increasing the throughput of Sant’Antnin and on increasing the price for waste.
Brincat also continues to cite the NAO report on WasteServ’s operation that was published towards the end of 2012. Here too, despite the clarifications made in response to the management letter and despite the public clarifications made in the media, Brincat continues to mudsling WasteServ and its officials in the hope that the organisation’s reputation and that of its officials is tarnished.
To lay this issue to rest, I have already asked the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee to put this report on the agenda. I remain convinced that the truth is diametrically opposed to what Brincat wants us to believe.
The minister is on record saying that, until these investigations are complete, no further decisions will be made by the new board. This implies that he is shying away from the obligations of the Solid Waste Management Strategy for the Maltese Islands, approved by Parliament about two years ago, with the sole excuse that he is busy investigating the past.
He also seems to be dragging his feet on the mechanical treatment facility at Għallis (an investment of €50 million) jeopardising its EU funding. He is also numb on the treatment of refuse derived fuels, a high calorific waste fraction that provides renewable energy if incinerated.
What is this kind of politics if not petty and pathetic? He is seriously putting people’s well-being at risk.
George Pullicino is a Nationalist MP.