PM ties himself up in knots trying to explain smart meters for illegal summer shacks
If the prime minister is to be believed, the reason his government has had smart meters installed in illegal summer shacks by the sea is to stop them stealing electricity from the state and each other.
The Leader of the Opposition should have given, immediately, a statement to camera asking why the prime minister is so worried about the theft of electricity by those who have stolen public land, and hadn’t he better get his ducks in a row on this one?
He should then have said that he trusts the prime minister does not intend making a mission of being encouraging to law-breakers to whom things may have been promised, adding that he understands, however, how a man must keep his word – which is why he is so very anxious to see the power station materialise by March as the prime minister’s resignation at this stage would be most unfortunate.
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What about the official customers who managed to steal millions of Euros in electricity? The motto is ‘steal and get rewarded’
If you have an official smart meter, and you steal electricity, you receive an amnesty.
If you steal land and build something on it, (call it summer residence), you will be rewarded with a smart meter to enjoy your stolen stuff.
The prime minister appears to believe that giving a smart meter to a thief will make him stop stealing electricity from others or from the provider.
Do we still have an Opposition in this country? Where is the PN? This website is the best opposition that we have. Shame on the Nationalist party for being so absent from the political scene.
My thoughts exactly. Opposition MPs are being paid for displacing air inside parliament.
I just thank God, or nature, for having made air of a lighter composition (lower density) than human flesh and bones, otherwise MPs would all float up to the ceiling of our parliament and Renzo Piano would have had a big problem there, I guess.
OK Nathalie, what exactly do you expect Simon Busuttil and the Nationalist Party to do any more than using their available resources (TV & radio) and their daily newspapers?
They broke stories/scandals in recent weeks which larger organizations failed to scoop even if they have better resources.
Parliament is just back in business and we shall see what the Opposition’s strategy is, then criticize or praise as applicable.
No matter how much the NP hollers, it will always be handicapped by the insurmountable majority the government enjoys. Blame the ‘hurt’ Nationalists for voting Labour for this pitiful situation.
That’s more like it.
That’s style and timing that ups the ante.
Charlie, at the end of the last post mentioning Konrad Mizzi, seems to indicate that with his experience in politics he would find the “skuza (of Joseph Muscat) li jdahhal kulhadd fin-nassa” is acceptable and the expectation of transparency, accountability and no backtracking isn’t.
This is my reply to Charlie:
“Vera niskanta li stajt tahseb li l-weghda kienet ser tibqa go bozza fil-waqt li x-xoghlijiet lanqas bdew.”
In fact, he sounds like a plant intended to sound like a particular NP member of Parliament, but who would never ever have dropped the Mario de Marco barb had it been him.
Spot on Mrs. Caruana Galizia. The problem is that PN aren’t using the best ammunition to rattle the Prime Minister and that is a sharp woman rebutting him.
Can you tell me how he is going to enforce the payment of electricity if these default and do not pay their dues?
ARMS already has big problems when it comes to recouping the millions overdue and sometimes resorts to temporarily cutting the electricity so that the owner can come to ARMS and negotiate an agreement, which agreement can easily be defaulted on and ARMS will take another year to consider further action and in the meantime the amounts due will increase further.
[Daphne – Oh I’m sure you needn’t worry about that. Carmen Ciantar, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s current estranged wife, has been put in charge at ARMs after her extensive experience in sales at Yellow Pages, her compensation for encouraging her foul husband to do what he did for the Labour Party from his seat on the PN benches and winding up hoist by her own petard.]
For you and me, in order to get a meter, we would have to have the electricity system certified by someone with a licence AND we would have to make sure that the premises are built exactly according to the MEPA permit.
Are these rules being done away with for everyone now or just for these cowboys, who grabbed, defiled, littered and spoiled this public land but because votes talk, are put above the law?
We have an interesting state of affairs where instead of shying away from dirt, those in power legitimise aspects of the dirty for power’s sake.
People donate the parking fees to charity for a public event organized by them on grounds in violation of the law making a mockery of the law.
Showing animals to the public which are being kept illegally.
Others See ‘ice’ on a table in a club and not report it.
Government advertises on illegal billboards.
The list goes on and on. These are not irrelevant, unconnected incidents. This is the new way of governing in action.
Could the stupid idiots, who were taken in, now stand up and tell us if things have met their expectations?
Well said.
Allow me to add relying on those who don’t know any better than these methods to come up with proposals viable for a state.
So St.George’s Bay will be rendered a vast building site, tower cranes by the dozen, obviously left to swing until anyone decides to buy into the next ‘luxurious’ address.
That includes both Corinthias levelled, majtezwel hux, prompting Winston Zahra Jr. to announce postponing refurbishment of the Radisson.
Given that he’s responsible to his shareholders, wait and see the only option. Zahra defaults in thinking along regulations and a market ecosystem.
The movement instead is a diorama, a make believe Malta, nothing outside of it, consequences irrelevant to Muscat’s virtually closed system.
He thinks he’s pro-business, all he is, is a pure socialist, dogmatic and out for the cause. In his case it’s personal mental wanks. Dubai, Singapore, bling.
He’s severely limited though, resorting to pharaonic one solution to eternity, nothing near daily grind and constant feedback. Collateral, in his manner, will be a major factor, more than a simple what if.
I sincerely wonder where his advisors are. Maybe they need him to carry on doing their business.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-10-13/local-news/Transport-Minister-says-Autobuses-de-Leon-to-take-over-public-transport-service-early-next-year-6736123633
What a surprise, Joe Mizzi.
Joe Mizzi also assured us that the new house of parliament would be ready by this week and we know what happened.
It’s ready, it’s ready, it’s ready…
Repeat it 100 times and many will believe it. (Goebbels said it. Goebbels practised it. Goebbels lost.)
[Daphne – Goebbels didn’t lose in Germany, though, did he. Goebbels had to be vanquished by external forces, and it cost millions of lives and the destruction of an entire continent. They believed him at home and they would have gone on believing him.]
The Leader of the Opposition did take a stance, and a fundamental one albeit not forceful enough.
Quite a spectacle, watching Muscat transform into anything and its opposite.
The Opposition would perhaps oblige making him do a couple of party tricks.
Jim Hacker’s killer instinct required.
Smart meters – any meters – are not installed unless a building is compliant with regulations.
Installing meters in boathouses is effective sanction of those buildings.
Another electoral promise delivered.
Absolutely. In order to install an Enemalta meter, one needs to obtain a Compliance Certificate from MEPA, in which MEPA officers visit the property and ensure that there is either a development permit or a Pre-1967 Compliance Certificate.
Did the prime minister confirm that this procedure is being complied with? Isn’t he in charge of MEPA?
Is there a single journalist (besides you) who actually listened to what Muscat was saying and hollered “the Emperor isn’t wearing anything at all”?
The Nationalist Party must be blind, incompetent, completely broken or in need aggressive leadership.
Muscat is a compulsive liar. The land-thieves of Armier promised him their vote before the last election and he got their sympathy.
Now he is protecting them. Giving them smart meters means that you acknowledge their wrong-doing and thus their actions become justified. At least that’s how it’s seen, not least by the land-thieves themselves.
Truly, this land has become a Godfather Protectorate, with the Padrino being Muscat himself.
Do they have a compliance certificate to be able to get water and electricity installation?
Mhux hekk hux, imbaghad minhabba semplici apertura mhux skond il-pjanta minghajr dawl u ilma jhalluk.
The smart meter IS certification.
You La Redoute, have the mind equivalent of Ducati’s bevel drive desmo.
Details, please. I’m not much into cars, beyond Bugatti blue.
A promise kept.
A smarmy legality conferred.
A precedent set.
And Bob’s your uncle.
All done without as much of a yawn or the batting of an eyelid.
Hurrah.
And we expect deterrents to crime?
Desmodronic actuation of valves implies purely mechanical means to lift and lower valves; the springs normally used to push them back up, and their physical limit how fast they can spring back, replaced.
That means the engine can rev faster, and that’s more power. Basically Ducati was able to envisage a small(ish) single cylinder which matched the performance of engines with twice the cylinders and capacity.
Problem was the resulting complex cylinder heads on top of an aircooled engine, drive from the bottom end somehow requiring to be transferred to this new type of camshaft/valve configuration. A pulley chain arrangement on one side of the cylinder would have created assymetrical cooling and hotspots.
Enter the bevel drive, much like a hand operated whisk, with a spindly vertical shaft sleeved in a tube running up outside the finned cylinder.
Elegance, sharpness and an advantage gained by inherent dry, logical thinking.
Now for the geeky video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3WtOXHQFTM
And how the engine transformed how bikes looked, rode and what that meant, fast bikes monstrous lumps until then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZj-c0sw9GE
Bevel drive showing clearly at 0.05. Notice the Y shaped oil passages used to transfer oil to the two valve banks, the bevel shaft itself shaped like an Archimedes screw pump.
Nothing left to chance, efficiency resulting from duality of purpose of every component true to form.
Now imagine Labour, yes, terrible.
Once they read this blog I am sure they will take action as suggested by you.
[Daphne – Il-ftira shuna tajba, Lixu. And in any case, they wouldn’t.]
This man became Prime Minister of our country on the promise that he had a plan to reduce the cost of electricity from some 16c to 9c per unit through the building of a new power plant by a private investor that would by the end of March 2015.
He knew it could not happen because all the experts and all the experience around the world said otherwise. But he persisted in creating this aura that it was doable.
On the eve of the European Parliament elections he lied again when he said he was “absolutely convinced” of the time frame for the building.
All that is going to happen on the 1st April 2015 is that the Minister for Finance and National Debt is going to write out the cheque of millions of Euro to make up for these lies and crass incompetence.
This needs to be hammered home.
He tries to fool us by saying that he is a “few months” late. The truth is that this plant will not be finished for years and there is a good chance it may be totally forgotten.
I repeat what I posted here on this blog before the 2013 election that one Labour stalwart told me not to take this plan seriously.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141014/local/enemalta-deal-delayed-as-china-asks-for-assurances.539649
There you have it, no investor is going to buy a power plant from Enemalta only to find themselves having to compete with an interconnector and a future plant built by a direct competitor.
So Konrad Mizzi had to finalise the deal by November, at least that’s what he had said during the 2c press conference.
Ciccio and Pete Ross, any suggestions to this hapless bunch?
Something tells me that Konrad Mizzi will be humiliated in Parliament by Padrino Muscat come next week’s debate.
Another cabinet reshuffle on the way and Chris Fearne promoted to minister? He’s been looking very pleased with himself lately.
That will be hilarious, it will simply expose Muscat’s real limits.
That reshuffle was panic at its purest, the moment Farrugia handed him his resignation, Muscat just had to rush and get rid of the problem.
Which in his mind was keeping Marlene Farrugia and co. quiet.
And to hell with common sense and what needed to be done.
Mela mhux hekk, jigu jghidu li miskin Konrad Mizzi kien overloaded jonqos.
What a waste of prime criticism material.
Will these illegal buildings get an official postal address in order to be billed?
How will they work this one out, by billing at the “winter” address?
There are so many, I’m sure a few of them use or let their “boathouse” as a single permanent address.
No rhyme or reason. I hate to imagine the state they are going to leave this country in.
The PN is not absent from the political scene. But its leader is very soft spoken and most of the time pussy footing.
Simon Busutill and the entire PN strategy team are in a coma. The PN has a plethora of Muscat’s lies and enough ammunition to go after him NOW, and not in 8 more years. With money and a careful campaign the PN can stop Muscat from ruining this country within a few months. Where is the PN leadership?
Simon Busutill is not a suitable Opposition leader.
Too weak and too nice a guy for the job.
Matt, there’s a major flaw in your first sentence. There’s no strategy team.
Why didn’t he raze the whole area and stop them from being ‘forced’ to steal land?
The man from Burmarrad has spoken, and what he says is law.
Does this make him a dictator or just a dick?
Il-huta min rasa tinten.
Mhux ta b’ xejn dan il-pajjiz taghna sar qiesu bir tas-skieken u bejta tal-hallelin, korrotti, frodisti, mixtrija, maffjuzi u skart iehor.
Sa fejn naf jien, if you don’t want someone to “steal” electricity you just cut off his supply. Or am I being too smart? it may be lampuki season but plenty of mzazen still around to have swallowed this one.
Now that’s really clever, isn’t it?
Our Dear Leader is concerned at the loss of revenue due to electricity theft and he solemnly tells us that he will have none of this and so slapped a smart meter where there was no meter at all.
Nothing to do with land, mind you. That must be a minor, insignificant issue.
So now we know the scale of priorities: stealing electricity is a no-no for our Dear Leader but the takeover of public land for private use is well, not a pressing matter, is it?
Quite frankly I do not think the PN should do anything at this stage. They are clearly not up to scratch to level this kind of criticism at Government. I think quite frankly Joe Muscat and his acolytes are inflicting enough harm on themselves. The PN needs, first and foremost to get its house in order. This opposition is broken but also broke. I agree Simon is weak but, on the other hand, I’d rather the party took charge of its own affairs yet.
At the end of the day, Muscat is steam rolling over us – the people will realise what an incompetent lot they all are.
I was skeptical at first but I’m sure that the level of incompetence will have its backslash soon. The traffic jamming our roads is one such example. Decrease in foreign investment is another.
This is the situation . Let them be. They are unwittingly sowing the seeds of their undoing. And I can hear murmurs of discontent from those who would have sworn we needed a change.
The challenge for the PN is, of course, to cajole back the “murmerers” into voting the PN but criticism will not obtain that result. Brainwashing will. And put plain and simply, brainwashing needs money. Look what the PL did. The PN needs to ally itself with strategic partners who have an interest to keep the PL at bay – partners who are of sufficient means to ffuel a strong campaign.
My worry with thePN now is not that it is practically absent but that it has no vision.
Goebbels didn’t lose in Germany, though, did he. Goebbels had to be vanquished by external forces, and it cost millions of lives and the destruction of an entire continent. They believed him at home and they would have gone on believing him.
You are correct Daphne. Those lies cost the lives of 50 million Europeans and the misery of other hundreds of millions. Lies provoke hatred that in turn provoke confrontations and in extremis, wars.
Milosevic repeated the same Goebbels-esque dirty game, raising the Kosovo story from the dead to instil hatred in the heart of Serbs who initially, during the Gorbachev (mostly peaceful) revolution had demanded his resignation and the introduction of democracy in what was left of the Yugoslav Fedration. The hatred machine overtook the democracy demand and hey presto; another genocide. Srebrenica, with the UN looking on to boot.
Communists are of the same ilk. Stalin caused the death of another 50 million.