GUEST POST: This year, the cost of power generation has doubled because of the corrupt deal with Electrogas and Azerbaijan

This guest post has been written by a senior accountant working for a large corporation.

Yesterday I read in The Sunday Times – as did thousands of others – that Frederick Azzopardi, Enemalta’s CEO, has been boasting how the corporation made €40 million in profit last year.  For reasons that will be immediately obvious, there was not a single mention that this vindicates the Nationalist government’s strategy in this sector.

That strategy was to use the interconnector with Sicily as the main source of supply, because it is the cheapest; to use the BWSC power plant to meet peak demand; and to use Delimara 1 power plant only in case of emergency.

Last year was the first full year in which Enemalta benefited from reduced rates of power generation, thanks to the interconnector.  Enemalta also made massive savings from the efficiency of the new BWSC plant.

The Marsa power station could have been shut down two years ago, but  Muscat did not do that because he knew that the BWSC plant had to stop functioning for almost a year whilst it was converted to run on gas.

It is these investments which have made possible the reduction in the price of electricity to consumers. The Electrogas power station had nothing to do with it, because it wasn’t operational (is it even operational now?). It is these investments which make the claims by the Chamber of Commerce and the GRTU for further reduction in electricity rates a fair request.  

But the corrupt Muscat government cannot reduce rates further, because as from this year, the cost of power generation has doubled through the corrupt deal with Electrogas/the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan.  This deal will cost Malta more than €1 million every week.  That is  more than €1 billion over the next 18 years. The Maltese will be paying for this corruption, from which a few corrupt businessmen, and politicians with companies in Panama, will benefit.

Labour likes to shout – or used to, because it doesn’t anymore – about the so-called ‘oil scandal’, in which no politicians were involved. That’s ironic, when you consider that the Nationalist government invested in the interconnector so that Malta would not need to buy either oil or gas. It is Muscat’s government which is embroiled in an actual ‘gas scandal’, because of the kickbacks between those Panama companies and Azerbaijan.

It is always back to the same bottom line: Nationalist governments implement strategic projects which benefit the country. Labour governments pursue corrupt deals. Muscat’s government has been the most shocking example of that.