Greens dub Marsa ‘symbol of government incompetence’

The Green party said that the fact that the power station was still allowed to operate by derogating from the law, and had now not even provided alternative sources of energy was “symptomatic of an administration with no long-term vision in the energy sector.”

“Minister after minister, from George Pullicino to Austin Gatt, have rubbished anyone who spoke about alternative sources of energy only to realise way too late that something has to be done to wean the country off total dependency on oil – a long process which requires forward planning, something this government is not capable of doing,” AD energy spokesperson Ralph Cassar said.

“Despite all the rhetoric government is also very late in implementing the project connecting Malta’s grid to Italy by cable,” Cassar said.

Yesterday Enemalta Corporation blamed the Labour opposition for raising obstacles to the tendering process for the Delimara power station extension, which so far has been the subject of an investigation by the Auditor General and of an as-yet-incomplete parliamentary committee hearing.

“The Nationalist government expects to rush through the planning process for the Delimara power station with no objections from anyone. This plant uses dirty heavy-fuel oil and an untested end-of-pipe pollution limiting technology. It is in a rush because it did not plan for the phasing out of Marsa Ppower station even though it promised its shutdown first in 1995 on completion of the first Delimara power plant, then in 2004, on accession to the European Union,” Cassar said.

AD chairperson Michael Briguglio said that although certain measures on renewable energy are commendable, Malta was still an EU laggard on renewable energy and energy efficiency.

“We expect the forthcoming budget to give top priority to sustainable and clean energy use, rather than just having sporadic incentives. We also expect government to come up with a solution regarding the thousands of people living in apartments who are cannot make use of renewable energy due to penthouses," Briguglio said.