Since this government came to power, hardly a day goes by that we are not faced with some scandal and not fed some cockamamie story in an attempt to justify the unjustifiable, in the hope that we, the “ignorant natives”, might just swallow it.
They want us to believe it is normal for the government of a civilised democracy to pay €4 million to get a tenant to vacate a property after a breach of obligations of a lease agreement. Or for it to pay €3.4 million for a third of an undivided share of a house in Valletta.
They want us to imagine it is perfectly alright to enter into an undisclosed contract with an entity – Electrogas – for the building of an unneeded power station and bind itself to purchase all the electricity from the new plant at the rate of 9c6, when it could procure all the power it requires through the interconnector at between 3c and 6c. It is fine to furnish a State guarantee of €365 million in the event that Electrogas reneges on its obligations towards the bank, with the taxpayer footing the bill.
It’s also quite okay for the government-appointed consultants on the Paceville masterplan to have commercial interests in the project most likely to benefit from the plan; and for the consultants not to have consulted the residents most likely to be affected.
And of course, it is totally above suspicion for a government minister to set up a company in Panama less than a week after being elected and then to confirm the deposit of €1 million per annum into a bank account when a minister’s salary is €45,000 per annum. And for this to have occurred two days after the signing of the contract for the running of the only hospital in Gozo by an unknown entity with no experience whatsoever in healthcare.
The list is endless and sickening – and the citizens of this country are expected to accept it all because it is assumed that we are bunch of idiots.
Now, however, it is not only the government that is taking us for idiots but also Electrogas, which has placed a floating storage unit piping LNG to land in what is not an all-weather port.
Last Saturday the Maltese islands witnessed quite a severe storm blowing in from the North East – a grigalata.
The list is endless and sickening – and the citizens of this country are expected to accept it all
Obviously, Marsaxlokk Bay, particularly the area beneath Delimara, is protected from the North East. But Electrogas rather stupidly issued an announcement stating that notwithstanding the storm, the floating storage unit, Armada LNG Mediterrana, took it well and there was no issue.
Well, surprise surprise! The fishermen at Marsaxlokk thought this announcement was pathetic: “Don’t they have the right technical people to tell them that in a grigalata, Marsaxlokk is the most sheltered harbour in Malta?” they asked.
What we are all still waiting for is Electrogas to confirm that there will be no issue if a storm with exactly the same force were to blow from the East South East. How would the storm moorings totally exposed to the full force of such a storm perform then?
That brings me to the dumping of 15,000 pages of information on the Environment Resources Authority website two weeks ago at the start of the 30-day, then 40-day, public consultation period – another disgraceful manoeuvre putting the government in breach of the Seveso Directive which talks about “effective consultation”.
This is not going to stop us from analysing at least the most important documents. We are using a fine tooth comb to go through the nautical risk assessments, safety reports and emergency reports, which are meant to put the citizens’ minds at rest. We have identified a number of serious deficiencies: an external emergency plan, supposed to tell residents what to do in case of an emergency, is missing; safety reports with no sea side safety and emergency response details; the vessel having to be taken to her storm moorings not just in a “rare storm”, because according to reports it will be unsafe for her to remain at the jetty in a significant wave height of 2.5 metres and probably much less – a force 5.
Furthermore, none of the wave penetration studies were conducted on the basis of actual information collected by buoys purposely set up to measure real waves and sea penetration – all the numbers were simulated and based on weather sites and information collected by passing vessels. There were no studies whatsoever on the seabed, which is meant to be home to the anchoring system ensuring the carrier does not move from its moorings in bad weather.
And there was the damning conclusion to the wave penetration report which states: “Some anecdotal information (pilot observations and storm videos) was received indicating that the wave height inside the bay of Marsaxlokk might be higher than predicted in the present study. The lack of available site measurements makes it impossible to properly deal with the anecdotal information and increase the reliability of the study results. Noting the above, the results of the study should be treated with caution during the design.”
Please note this report is dated December 2015 when the construction of the jetty was practically completed. Can it get any worse? Yes it can, and we will be explaining to what extent when we have completed our analysis.
Ann Fenech is president of the Executive Committee of the Nationalist Party.