Labour leader Joseph Muscat said today that the damage to the Delimara power station extension was worrying because the government had reduced the country to being dependant on an old power station which was supposed to have shut down 15 years ago.

Speaking at a PL activity in Mtarfa this morning, Dr Muscat said the situation was such as to possibly undermine the economy and jobs as many companies worried that they did not have security of energy supply.

"Energy supply has been prejudiced" Dr Muscat said. "This will affect investment, it will affect jobs, and it will affect Malta's young people."

Having a six-month delay in the power station extension was no joke, particularly if Malta risked suffering power cuts, he said.

He said that the Minister of Finance should have, responsibly, informed the country of the situation before it was revealed by Labour MP Joe Mizzi in parliament.

He said the regulators had lost all credibility because they too had not gone public.

Because of the way the contract with BWSC had been drafted, Malta would now have to go to court just to get paid for the damages it would suffer, Dr Muscat said. And, he noted, litigation would have to take place abroad, because the government had not heeded warnings.

To make matters worse, the government had paid BWSC in advance practically for everything that it owed, bar a few million, even before a switch was thrown. It, therefore, could not withhold payments until the repairs were completed.

Did anyone in his right mind pay for an item before switching it on? That was exactly what the government had done. It rushed the contract, it rushed the payments, commissions were paid, and now Malta had a problem.

Dr Muscat said matters would not end here and Labour would ensure that those who took decisions would have to assume responsibility. "Justice has to be done" he said, adding it would be done in the context of tranquillity and fairness.

BUDGET DELAYS

Earlier in his address Dr Muscat, for the second Sunday in succession, stressed that it would be hugely detrimental for Malta if it started the new year without an approved Budget.

Such a situation, he warned, would undermine the economy and investor confidence and could cost thousands of jobs.

It was irresponsible for the prime minister to cling to power at all costs, despite the consequences to the country, he said.

Dr Muscat said the Opposition could not vote for the Budget because it had no  confidence in the government.  Last year, the ink had barely dried on the Budget for this year when the European Union ordered a €40m cutback on spending plans. Those cutbacks meant less funds for health, education, programmes for persons with disability, indeed every sector except the building of the new Parliament.

Since then the government had been forced into a second round of cutbacks, which the government was keeping under wraps. Again, children with disabilities had been among those who suffered cutbacks in their school programmes.

Dr Muscat said that should the situation he was warning about materialise, a Labour government would have to take urgent decisions in the national interest. He stressed that Labour would not promise anything it could not deliver. 

ST PHILIP'S HOSPITAL

Dr Muscat said that what was happening regarding St Philip's Hospital was surreal. The government wanted to acquire St Philip's and had ignored the other options. The Opposition was continuing to insist that the deal should be subjected to scrutiny before it was signed, he said. Referring the deal for scrutiny after it was signed was like holding an autopsy.

He said that the Public Accounts Committee would start discussing this issue on Wednesday and he hoped the contract would not be signed before then, or before this discussion was over.

The dispute, he said, was not with the owner of the hospital, but with the government. However if he wanted to politicise the issue, Labour would too.

The government, he said, had ignored the possibility of rehabilitating part of St Luke's Hospital, for political reasons. Yet it did not shirk from forking out €4 million to transform part of the former hospital into an office with a view for the chairman of Malta Enterprise.