Who’s going to insure a privately-operated power station without a proper security risk assessment? Nobody.
Somebody must have redefined the meaning of ‘secret’.
This afternoon, we took a deeper trip down the rabbit-hole.
The consultant who was brought over by the Nationalist Party, to speak at this afternoon’s press conference, comes from a risk assessment background.
That means he took it for granted that everybody in the room, and the Labour Party outside it, knows that privately-operated power stations have to be insured in terms of investment and – more crucially – third party damage (risks to life and other people’s property caused by fire, explosions, malfunction and so on).
And that would have accounted for his total bewilderment at everyone’s failure to understand that a proper security risk assessment takes a year. He hadn’t grasped the fact that no one seems to understand that this is not optional, nor is it just obligatory under EU law.
It is obligatory for INSURANCE.
Has insurance slipped Konrad Mizzi’s mind? I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s slipped Il-Guy’s given the way he’s been doddering about recently.
Under Maltese law, insurance – even insurance against damage to third parties – is not a requirement for state-run entities. You have to sue the state directly in a court of law.
But this Labour power station will be operated by a private investor, not by the state. It will have to be covered by insurance against damage to third parties. And the investor, of course, will also need to insure its investment. It cannot be insured without the mandatory security risk assessment reports.
Nobody seems to have thought of this. If Labour has entered into some Faustian pact with an investor already, and this investor has agreed to come on board with a security risk assessment and without insurance, then we have a serious problem on our hands.
The Labour Party’s current line of argument is ‘come on, accidents like that never happen’. Except when they do, of course. The whole thinking behind insurance is precisely that: that accidents rarely happen, but when they do, they really do.
Imagine having an uninsured, privately operated power station (even if that were possible). But I lived through the years when Karmenu Vella was a government minister under PM Mintoff and PM KMB, so quite frankly, nothing he does or says is ever going to surprise me.
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And if a Labour government plans to blacklist bad employers, it will not be able to buy electricity from a powerstation which does not insure the life of its employees, and which poses a major unmitigated occupational health and safety hazard to those employees.
JosephMuscat2013 is checkmated.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130112/local/Labour-will-blacklist-bad-employers.452871
We all know s**t happens, and should, God forbid, a major accident happen, this will destroy an area on around 2 kilometres – basically remove Marsaxlokk off the map. ‘Tal-biza’ in more ways than one.
To all those idiots who keep insisting that accidents never happen, they should take a look at this.
This happened in an advanced European country late last year not in a third world country back in the dark ages.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/dutch-powerplant-explosion-idINL5E8KC55J20120912
I’d rather caption the above picture “Our weapons of self mass destruction!”
I think they should also insure Konrad. He seems to be the only one who has full faith in this project and knows all its workings.
God forbid that anything should happen to him, we’ll all be in a quandary how to continue the project.
It may also be something so simple as a personal decision to leave Malta for a better job, for example.
inxuurrjins
PL need a new campaign song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF2jHEB9Auc
In the event of having the cost of our electricity cheaper as Joseph is saying, would it be feasible to purchase and install a PV installation on your rooftop?
As Marco Cremona pointed out, it would take 10,000 rooftops a year to have the power mix which the PL are proposing.
M’hemmx l-inxurjans tal- GWU , l-untours? Forsi dawn partners ukoll f’dil froga
“Our chief weapon is surprise…surprise and fear…fear and surprise…. Our two weapons are fear and surprise…and ruthless efficiency…. Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope…. Our four…no… Amongst our weapons…. Amongst our weaponry…are such elements as fear, surprise…. I’ll come in again.”
– Monty Python – The Spanish Inquisition.
I iva Daphne, kemm se taghgibha!
Dik l-insurance u r-risk assessment mhux xi €10 jiswew, jew forsi jakkwistawhom second hand biex jiffrankaw mit-taxxi tal-poplu?
Din ma kellux ghalfejn isemiha Konrad fir-rapport ghax forsi anke l-insurance jakkwistaw b’xejn. Mintoff mhux hekk kien jakkwista l-affarijiet b’xejn jew second hand.
1. Have the residents of Marsaxlokk been briefed about all possible implications?
It is obvious that their council is of no use, at the very least the council could have at least asked PL whether it had considered other sites and not just lumped it in their front garden just because they are pro PL.
2. Joseph Muscat said he would still carry on with the project if only for that one cancer/asthma sufferer, is he implying that his phantom power station will single handedly wipe out cancer from the south of Malta? Shall we all flock down there?