According to the adviser testifying before it, the Public Accounts Committee was told, Enemalta could have saved millions through earlier hedging of oil purchases.
In fact, the headline to the piece on the portal says just that: Enemalta could have saved millions through earlier hedging of oil purchases.
What the headline does not say, reasonably enough given that space is at a premium, is that the adviser seems to have been talking about the period up to 2003, just about eleven years ago.
A quick glance at the story on the portal shows that there were savings by Enemalta in the less distant past through hedging, because to the right of the story, as always, there’s the box that points you to “similar stories” This is sometimes a weird and wonderful feature of online paper-reading, because it relies not on human intelligence but on electronic perceptions of similarities in stories, resulting in a piece about, say, budgie boiling in Northumberland being linked to boiler houses in Brisbane, but on this occasion, there were a couple of pieces that were relevant.
So, while the testifying adviser, who was also having something of a moan because something (apart from the hedging) that he had requested was not accepted and because the world had been told something about something he had not done that required correction to avoid him taking umbrage even further, was able, with 20/20 hindsight, to say that had his advice about hedging been taken before 2003, Enemalta could have saved millions, two stories that pop up with the tickle of a mouse’s belly tell us that in 2009, the Corporation had made €10.7 million, while in 2008 something like €55 million were saved.
In other words, saying things with the benefit of hindsight is great fun, because you’re always right. I can now say, for instance, that it was clear from day one that England would not qualify, after they were beaten by an almost but not quite as mediocre Italy, because that is what happened - up to the end of the round, though, there was the possibility that England would make it.
If, on the other hand, things had gone wrong, no-one can gainsay you really, because in real time, circumstances change and plans gang aft aglay, if you’ll forgive the Scottish.
I don’t want to enter into any arguments about whether or not Enemalta should have hedged its bets on the price of oil back in 2003 or even whether it did the right thing post-2003 or whenever it was that hedging started. I’m sure that the eminent expert testifying before the PAC had his ducks all in a row and had crunched the numbers to perfection.
Far be it from me to dare even consider the vague notion that it should cross my mind that I can, with the greatest leap of the imagination in human history, even begin to understand the results that have been put before the Honourable Members of the PAC, erudite folk one and all, but even I can perceive the slight idiocy of the PAC discussing historic data such as this without a not towards the realities of the circumstances.
In 2003, Enemalta could have been betting on the price of oil, and had it done so, it would have won well. In 2008, it was, and the bets paid off. Since then, there have been other results. In 2014, it (or its Chinese masters) might or might not do the same, but whatever is decided, it remains a fact that this is a bet, and bets can go wrong.
So just allow me to insert a note of caution: the past, even a past that is gazed upon fondly through rose-tinted glasses, is no guarantee of the future (heard this one before?) and just because a professorial type says that millions would have been saved by hedging before 2003, this does not necessarily mean that it will do so in 2014.