Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said today that developments in Enemalta and Air Malta were examples of how the present government was 'built on lies'.

Speaking in a Radio 101 Dr Busuttil said the government was built on a lie and the announced delay in the building of the new power station confirmed it. The government had promised the people that the power station could be built in two years and if that did nto happen, the prime minister would resign. Another lie was that the gas storage facility needed to be in Marsaxlokk so that the power station could be completed on time.

The governemnt had not kept its word, so how could it continue to be believed?

The power station was a classic case of how the governemnt was built on a lie and the people need to know this, hence the debate in parliament tomorrow, Dr Busuttil said.

He noted that the government first said it would build a power station in order to bring down the tariffs and then the tariffs for domestic users came down without the new power station. So why build it when it was not needed?

The PN had had different alternatives to reduce power tariffs, not least through the savings made through the BWSC plant and the interconnector, as well as subsidies for alternative energy sources.

The government, Dr Busuttil said, was a prisoner of its own promises. It was also seriously lacking the honesty and transparency it had promised. An example was how the contracts with Electrogas and with Shanghai Electric were not published.

The government was going into a commitment to buy the electricity produced by the BWSC plant, which the Chinese would buy. It had also bound itself to buy the electricity generated by the new power station built by Electrogas. Those two sources together produced more electricity than Malta needed.

And Malta also had the interconnector, which could well provide even cheaper electricity.

So would the government end up buying more electricity than it needed, and at more expensive rates?

Dr Busuttil hit out at the government for having secretly bought Enemalta’s Petroleum Division for €83 million. Why did the government buy this division instead of the private sector? Why the secrecy by a governemnt which had held a press conference to announce a 2c drop in petrol prices?

TRANSPORT PROBLEMS PERCEPTION

Turning to transport, Dr Busuttil said it as an insult for the people to be told that the problems were a ‘perception’.

The real cancer factory as not the BWSC plant but the growing congestion of vehicular traffic which this governemnt had not only failed to solve, but had made worse.

AIR MALTA

Dr Busuttil said the PN was seriously concerned about Air Malta, which was vital for the country. The former government had agreed a restructuring plan with the EU and it had been followed. But as soon as the new government took office, matters went backward and now the third Air Malta chairman under this government was complaining that the management structure had been dismantled. It was dismantled by this government.

In the past, Labour was against privatisations. Now, it seemed, the opposite was the case. The same was also the case for Enemalta . Another case to show how the governemnt was built on lies.

GOVERNMENT U-TURN ON LOCAL ELECTIONS

Dr Busuttil said he welcomed the government u-turn on local councils and the next round would be held as planned next year. The PN, however, had reservations about postponing the 2017 elections.

In the past, he said, and changes involving elections were only made after consensus between the parties. He hoped that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat would similarly seek consensus, although he doubted that this would be the case.

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