The agreement between Enemalta and Shanghai Electric was the fruit of a political vision and the foresight to plan ahead for the country’s energy needs in the light of an expanding economy, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said yesterday.

Speaking in Parliament during a debate on the deal between Enemalta and Shanghai Electric, Dr Muscat said the deal meant the corporation was no longer a financial millstone for Malta, and the jobs of its workers had been saved.

This deal was hugely advantageous for Malta and would help boost its economy. Moreover, the agreement would make of Malta an energy hub and give the energy sector price stability.

Dr Muscat said the debate was taking place at a time of optimism for the future of the corporation, which had to date been a dead weight around the people’s necks, putting their savings in jeopardy.

The corporation is no longer a financial millstone for Malta

The Opposition had not really wanted to have the debate, citing reservations.

The government had wanted it as early as December, and was now looking forward to letting the people know more about what was being done for Enemalta and the great advantages derived from the agreement.

The Opposition had asked for the debate to be televised but had made no such request when the House debated important legislation such as civil union, or Public Accounts Committee meetings on Enemalta’s fuel procurement procedure during the PN legislature.

Dr Muscat said that what the Nationalist administration had been ready to sell for just a euro had now attracted the greatest investment ever in Malta. On March 1, 2013, Standard & Poor’s described Enemalta as vulnerable, particularly due to its outdated practices and structuring.

That had driven Opposition leader Simon Busuttil to say that Labour’s plans to reduce energy tariffs were impractical. Today, two years later, that situation had been overturned, with S&P saying Malta’s economy would continue to grow more quickly than the rest of the eurozone, thanks mostly to investment in the private sector.

The concrete results were being felt in people’s pockets through the reduced tariffs, the saving of hundreds of jobs and the promised change to technology for cleaner air through gas.

The government wanted to make Enemalta an international centre of services to foreign companies. It had signed, and would continue to sign, agreements with countries like Azerbaijan, considered one of the upcoming strategic sources of natural gas.

It was ironic that the debate was being held at a time of new revelations about scandals in oil purchases. Dr Busuttil would have to shoulder great political responsibility for having, as then deputy PN leader, brushed off very serious allegations.

Turning to the issue of the price of fuel, Dr Muscat said that the narrative had changed from how high the prices of oil have risen to how low they have gone.

He criticised the petrol price meter which the PN had recently put online, saying it was faulty. When, under the previous administration, fuel prices had gone down, the government had repeatedly raised utility bills and the price of fuel.

Dr Muscat accused the Opposition, and Dr Busuttil in particular, of political hypocrisy. The present administration had reduced the utility bills and the price of fuel even before the price of fuel went down on the international markets.

The government would continue to try to pass on any savings to families.

He defied the leader of the Opposition to name just one country where the prices of fuel were as he, Dr Busuttil, was quoting. The exchange rates between the US dollar and the euro had deteriorated and this too had affected the price of oil, he noted.

A long-term approach had to be taken, said the Prime Minister, adding that the main aim should be price stability. Dr Muscat described the Opposition’s approach as being amateurish.

In the current scenario of oil prices, the interconnector was not at present cost-effective but the decision to have such a link had to be viewed in the long term.

Concluding, he said that in spite of everything, the utility bills for commercial entities would, as promised, be lowered by 25 per cent.