More crucially, what is the government going to do with those 250 million euros?
Father Christmas slid down Konrad Mizzi’s chimney today draped in the hammer and sickle of Chinese communism, and poured 250 million euros, with several barbed-wire strings attached, into his begging-bowl (Dom Mintoff’s political heirs don’t do stockings).
“This is the biggest single investment in Maltese history,” the government told one of the newspapers. It all depends on how you define investment, and this particular one has shades of Muammar Gaddafi’s investment in Mintoff’s children’s allowance scheme or China’s investment in Malta’s Red China Dock (the same says it all) in the 1970s.
So now they’ve got the money and what are they going to do with it? You’d think a huge capital sum like that, obtained in a single chunk, would be used to finance a whole raft of capital projects that have been pending for years because of lack of money, or which haven’t even been thought possible because of ditto.
And even after those capital projects are paid for cash down, there will still be plenty over to restore government-owned historic buildings and to pay the owners of land and buildings requisitioned years ago. We could also do something about the dreadful state of some of our secondary roads.
Those are just some ideas.
But instead we were told – a fact that seems to have been forgotten because it never figures in current newspaper reports – that this enormous capital sum will be used to subsidise our water and electricity bills by charging us far less than they cost to produce.
Our lower utilities bills were supposed to be the result of Labour’s new power station master plan coming to fruition in two months’ time, but there isn’t so much as a nut and bolt of that power station yet and from what I can gather the shareholders are scrabbling about like mad for the funding to build it even at this late stage.
So Plan B it is: using the capital sum from the sale of assets to China to trim electricity bills to households and businesses, rather than using it for the capital projects for which any responsible government would have (though no responsible government would have put a noose round its neck and thrown the other end of the rope to the Chinese communists).
If you want a comparison from ordinary life, it’s like selling a vast chunk of your real-estate inheritance and using the money to buy clothes for your girlfriends so that they don’t leave you.
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http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-12-30/local-news/250-million-transaction-between-Shanghai-Electric-Power-and-Maltese-Government-concludes-6736128024
Daphne, That’s exactly how mini-scams get financed that get the investors in to next tier scams where the multiplier of investor’s personal funds is: scams for personal gain.
There’s no logic, but there you have it.
It’s about what they can get and shore that becomes invisible.
The loss to the country was always lower down in priority.
Such a mess, that it will take years for investors to sift through first pain, then loss.
From Gonzi to Ponzi, eh?
Just watch Gasan, Fenech et al. pull out and pocket a cool 30 million.
Just for helping Muscat dupe the EU.
And do they also have the land at Marsaxlokk still in their possession?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140909/local/updated-government-lends-site-to-power-station-consortium.535033
The next move: Socar brings the floating storage unit into Marsaxlokk (after the March elections) and connects it to the BWSC plant. China invests Eur 70 million (presumably) in the gas conversion.
And that should be the end of Electrogas.
Meanwhile, China will import LNG gas for its BWSC plant in Malta via the Blue Silk Road through deals struck with Aliyev’s Socar in Baku.
Ciccio, bizzilla.
Qas ix-xih ma kien jahdem hekk. Ghallinqas dak l-ajruplani gabhom.
Mill-Pakistan, wara li sar l-agent tal-Boeing.
Il-bizniss ta’ Malta.
X’suq ta’ hames mitt miljun ghidlu ‘l Gonzi.
Well the Labour Party adverts screened in the Eden Cinemas during the election campaign seem to have paid off.
The most sensible thing that the government could have done is repay back outstanding debt, bring the debt down below the 70% to GDP Maastricht criterion, and save loads of interest payments.
From the latter, the government could have trimmed the energy costs. By financing a cut in energy tariffs, the country will continue to be faced with excessive deficit procedures and the stock of debt will continue to grow out of control until the debt servicing costs become unsustainable.
These short-term populist wins are going to backfire horribly in the long run.
There is no more need to subsidise our water and electricity bills as stated above, since the price of oil has halved from $115 from where it was three months ago to $55 today.
In fact the government is not only charging us more on energy bills, but it is also robbing us when we pay for petrol and diesel.
“This is the biggest single bailout in Maltese history” should be the correct headline.
Why is everyone afraid to state facts as they are? To hell with political correctness.
How could the Muscat-Mizzi combo say that Enemalta was bankrupt when one third of it after selling the brand new BWSC is worth Eur 100 million?
And this is not an investment. This is the sale of a strategic national asset to a communist state, and therefore a f*ck*p for Malta. An investment is one which initiates a new activity, brings in new know-how and technology, and drives new economic growth.
Joseph loves you.
No really, he does.
These people deal with the country’s finances more as speculators rather than responsible administrators.
Actually, let’s take a step back for a moment. Has Parliament approved this deal yet?
Weren’t the debate and vote postponed?
Why the haste?
Is this an attempt to rush the deal through and cover up some hidden mess in the documentation and material that should be tabled in Parliament?
An attempt to put pressure on the Opposition and stop it from a close scrutiny of the deal?
I thought the government was all too happy to postpone the debate even if it wanted it discussed as soon as possible.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141216/local/enemalta-shanghai-electric-agreement-debate-postponed.548544
I thought the sum will be used to cut some of Enemalta’ debts.
I guess Father Christmas never made it back up the chimney after all the milk and gingerbread men he’d been made to eat.
Fine, we know what they’re giving us.
What is it we’re giving them?
Mhux ovvja? Nikita’s imqaret.
Buy a few more Glocks maybe?
It is also an incentive to waste water & electricity, which means that Enemalta will need to generate more energy at a loss.
At this point, Kenneth Zammit Tabona can install his third air-conditioner without the need to fire his houseboys and change his lavish life style.
Has Kenneth acquired that government flat overlooking St John’s Square, yet?
Not yet. But he could buy it twice over.
Biggest investment? This isn’t even an investment.
[Daphne – Well, we’re living in an era when expensive pieces of clothing are described as ‘investment pieces for your wardrobe’ – a good coat, for example, is seen as an ‘investment’. I hear women speak about ‘investing’ in a good handbag or in their children’s education. So there you go.]
Daphne, I and my wife have invested fairly heavily in our children’s education (thousands of liri for one of them, in fact) – but my wife’s handbags are certainly no investments to speak of.
I would certainly not consider children’s education and handbags as being equal.
Spending money on children’s education can be looked at as a good investment even though the children might reap the fruit and not the ‘investor’.
[Daphne – That’s not the definition of ‘investment’. And in any case, it betrays the purely utilitarian Maltese approach to education: spending money on your children’s education so that they can make more money when they leave education. Education is there to make you a better person and a more interesting one, and not to give you higher earning power. Failure to understand this is why education in Malta is really nothing but functional training for a job or rote learning for examinations.]
By the same token, finding a good-looking future mother for your children is an investment in good genetics.
Daphne’s right. Words have meaning.
And we, of all people, should know. The commenda, my friends, is what European supremacy was built on.
The recipient of the funds does not make the investment. It’s a misconception. Both political parties have used this rhetoric…probably out of ignorance. It’s the one who forks out that has invested.
Actually the €250 million will be used to finance debt; energy reductions are being financed through substantially higher fuel prices. Good move, but Gahan is still paying the same and incentivising wasteful consumption in the process.