Opposition spokesman on the environment Leo Brincat yesterday urged the police to determine the extent of an alleged intermediary role of a PN-led Gozitan local council in a case of solar energy fraud linked to PV system subsidies for domestic use.
Speaking during the debate on the motion asking Parliament to authorise Malta's ratification of membership in the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), Mr Brincat said his request was being made particularly because the Malta Resources Authority was known to have first stopped the authorisation of the scheme, then pushed ahead with it only to stop things once it resulted that the case had to inevitably end up in the hands of the police for investigation following a series of complaints by "injured parties".
He said that as a result of this scam and inflated invoicing, many beneficiaries had been helped by the council to fraudulently over-benefit from a subsidy scheme through over-invoicing.
Mr Brincat said he hoped that all the necessary action would be taken even if the people involved happened to be close to the party in government, and that the investigations would be concluded without undue delay.
He also contrasted the Prime Minister's boast last Sunday that the Trade Fair had generated much business in solar water heaters with the fact that due to stiff means-testing, many would-be applicants were not even eligible to apply. So much so that the take-up of solar water heaters this year had been negligible - some 70 - while the market had virtually ground to a halt.
Mr Brincat said that through membership of Irena, Malta could in its own way help promote alternative energy to reduce global fossil fuel dependence, promote energy security, help combat energy poverty and encourage sustainable development conducive to a better quality of life. From Irena's very inception the opposition had been encouraging the government to join and ratify the treaty at the very earliest.
It would nevertheless be a mistake to give the impression that membership would solve all Malta's problems in the alternative energy sector because many were home-grown. This was mainly the result of years of neglect and indifference, conflicting policies, wrong or delayed decisions, project-linked initiatives without any official policy in place and now a stampede to make sure that Malta attained the mandatory EU-imposed 10 per cent emission cuts within the next 10 years.
It was shameful that Malta had only a still-unfinalised second draft of its alternative energy policy. It was to be hoped the action plan had been submitted to the European Commission by the cut-off date of June 10.
This was no mere paper exercise as it would be subject to constant monitoring and scrutiny. If Malta did not meet interim targets, it might even have to review the plan from scratch and would risk continuing to be penalised until such targets were met.
Malta's 10 per cent target for 2020 was the lowest within the EU.
Mr Brincat praised the NAO for publishing on its own initiative an update on the financial implications of Malta's alternative energy obligations.
He hoped that through Irena membership, mentality would change and the Maltese would become more proactive on renewable energy, draw on IRENA expertise to strengthen management support for national renewables plans and programmes while putting its limited number of experts in the area to maximum use.
Malta should not shirk from drawing on foreign expertise while ensuring that all relevant data were made available promptly to all prospective foreign and local investors in the sector to ensure that the most cost-effective benefit was derived. He augured that in coming years Malta could grow into a technological showcase in the renewables sector.
Rather than choosing an energy-poor country as a base for its headquarters, Irena had chosen oil-rich Abu Dhabi. Mr Brincat praised this strategic decision as it would send the global message that in spite of its generous oil supplies the emirate was already planning ahead and positioning itself for the so-called post-oil economy.
The NAO had been urging an announcement on feed-in tariffs since last year because their absence could deter foreign investment from Malta. Although the government was now intent on reassuring the public that the NAO figures were merely hypothetical projections, it seemed to be missing one important point made by the NAO: that the government should heed the financial and economic implications already spelt out in the original draft of the climate change report. Its figures were incidentally watered down in the final version approved by the House.
An important point made by the NAO was that the alternative energy sector posed not only environmental challenges but also financial, administrative, technical and planning-related ones.
Mr Brincat said it was shameful that the public had to come to learn through the NAO that the offshore wind farm would not be launched before six more years, and that four more years were needed to benefit from combined heat and power (CHP).
While the government seemed reassuring that Malta would manage to run 10 per cent of transport on alternative energy within the next decade, the NAO thought such conclusions were over-optimistic and premature, particularly because even the EU was still carrying out intensive studies on the subject.
Welcoming the link between energy efficiency and renewable energy, Mr Brincat questioned how Malta intended to reduce total consumption by nine per cent within the next six years. Statistics given in Parliament only two days ago showed that conventional energy use by the government itself had shot up by 21.3 per cent in 2009, an alarming figure.
In spite of the EU having long determined that some 40 per cent of energy could be saved through greater energy efficiency in buildings, the government had not yet implemented and started issuing building energy efficiency performance certificates, as it had originally promised to do early last year - and more recently by April 10. Mr Brincat asked whether it was true that the cost for the registration of such certificates would be higher than in other EU countries.
There was panic on the government front. Apart from suddenly warming to geo-thermal energy, about which it had been indifferent until recently, the government even spoke in its MRA document of ocean energy technology as a strong possibility simply because it had been approached by a company that showed interest in this sector. The government was meanwhile still dreaming about reviving the PN electoral pledge of a deep water wind farm when the technology remained untried and untested.
Mr Brincat said the PL would remain vigilant but prudent and comment only once technical and independent studies were concluded.
The government had stated in its draft action plan for submission to the EU that certain projects might cause public concern and that certain studies and public assessments had to be carried out before any plans were finalised. Mr Brincat said that Minister Pullicino, if anything, should censure Gozo Minister Giovanna Debono for having told a local newspaper that even if independent studies strongly recommended a wind farm in Gozo she would not commit herself in principle at this stage, while the PM's brother Michael Gonzi had shown deep reservations in Parliament on the negative visual impact of a wind farm on Is-Sikka l-Bajda for St Paul's Bay residents.
If anyone was irresponsible it was Minister Pullicino himself, who had gone on record stating that if Is-Sikka l-Bajda failed Malta might have to ask the European Commission to reduce its renewable energy targets, which the EU had rejected straightaway.
Mr Brincat also complained that the PM himself last Sunday had chosen to rubbish the NAO report on renewable energy as had become customary to do whenever the Auditor General came up with reports that were not to the government's liking. The government should have instead taken note of its two main recommendations: that it should constantly keep abreast of developments to ensure that maximum respect was paid to the provisions of the renewables directive and to ensure that any contingent liabilities were kept to the barest minimum.
The government needed to reassure the Maltese taxpayer that it would not be subjected to any fines because all deadlines would be met. But the government was fully aware that it had no fallback position because its document stated that if any forecast project failed, the overall impact would have grave consequences. A stop-go-stop approach by the government was not the right recipe.
Concluding, Mr Brincat called for a holistic national plan on solar energy that should even explore the feasibility of land reclamation to maximise use of mega solar energy projects. He also asked whether the government intended to utilise the Marsa power station plant for any alternative projects once the existing plant was decommissioned.