Very little that is new has come out of the parliamentary debate on the agreement between Enemalta and Shanghai Electric, except that fuel prices are set to drop once hedging agreements come to an end, and that the BWSC plant will be converted to gas by June.
Otherwise, the debate followed the same predictable format, with the Prime Minister mainly concentrating on drawing comparisons with the performance of the past Nationalist administration over a range of issues, not all necessarily related to the subject being debated, and the Opposition lambasting the government in the strongest terms possible.
In so far as the public is concerned, the outcome was, therefore, not fruitful at all. By holding back from giving relevant information on key aspects of the agreement, the government has exposed itself further to the accusation that it is not transparent enough.
The Prime Minister constantly talks in a manner that gives the impression the country is still in the midst of a general election. The problem for Joseph Muscat is that, while the Nationalist Party has paid the price for all its shortcomings in administration, including not being transparent enough, his party had made transparency a key issue in the 2013 election campaign.
He is not convincing when he now says that he is giving out more information than the previous administration. Dr Muscat had promised that Labour would act differently. It has not.
As this newspaper has argued all along, the agreement with Shanghai Electric is no mere commercial contract as it involves the part-privatisation of Enemalta, now transformed into a commercial company. The government still holds a majority shareholding interest in it, but Shanghai Electric has now bought a 33 per cent stake. Shanghai Electric will also be converting the BWSC plant to gas.
The government keeps criticising the former administration over its serious failings in the energy sector, particularly over the debt Enemalta had been allowed to build. However, the performance of past Labour administrations in the generation of electricity and water supply was far from satisfactory.
It would have been more useful, for instance, if information was given in the debate on the seven-year plan the energy minister has talked so much about, and how the plans for the building of the gas-fired power station are shaping up after the government admitted that the project has been delayed by 15 months when it had been insisting all along that it was on track.
At least the public has now been told that, once the fuel hedging terms end, prices will go down. But the energy minister did not say when the hedging arrangements are expected to end.
The government has been arguing that, through its policy, it has managed to keep fuel prices stable. This may be so, and there is no question that price stability is useful. However, with the price of oil now having dropped to such a low level, consumers expect to benefit from the dramatic fall, irrespective of what other administrations may or may not have done in the past.
When comparing prices of fuel at the pump between one country and another, or within the EU, consideration ought also to be given to wage differences – otherwise the comparison will not be meaningful.
What could have been a useful debate was turned into yet another meaningless tit-for-tat that diehard party supporters love but one that is nauseating for those who expect much better of the people’s representatives in Parliament.