So, what’s Enemalta’s role going to be, exactly?
Published:
January 10, 2013 at 9:09am
A reader emailed me this morning:
Dear Ms Caruana Galizia,
Would Air Malta employees believe Labour if they were told that there would be no more Air Malta flights, but that their jobs would be safe because they were going to sell tickets for flights on other airlines instead?
That is what Muscat is now telling Enemalta employees, and they are taking him at his word: that a Labour government will keep them all the payroll even though they are no longer producing electricity, but distributing electricity produced by others.
Regards
(name supplied)
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The generation will be supplied by the ghost investor while Enemalta will be reponsible for the distribution. The workers at the generation plant will have to go with the private company whatever promises Joseph Muscat makes.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20961702
Labour are going to have a tough time copying this. Mary Spiteri doesn’t quite fit the bill.
Is this business of surveying every household to check on electric usage the prelude for introducing a tax on second homes?
He had to correct the definition from audit to efficiency support services.
One wonders whether it’s compulsory and if the conclusions reached by the engineers become obligatory.
Free of charge he said.
I’m not changing an iota in my house, can manage very well thank you.
X’jahsbina tfal ma nafux niehdu hsieb darna. Jekk irrid jaghmel hekk ghal partitarji tieghu jaghmel li jrid.
The role of Enemalta would be the transmission and distribution but not generation of energy. The question is how is Enemalta going to get paid?
Distribution is not as visible as a power plant but it is an indispensable part if industrial, commercial and domestic clients want electricity.
The distribution network is also very expensive to install and maintain.
How is Enemalta going to get the finances to change aged cables, transformers and switchgear and to improve and develop the network?
The distribution network will always be the Achilles’ heel. They’re focussing way too much on generation and neglecting the distribution infrastructure.
If Enemalta is to become a distributor of electricity rather than a provider, two things are immediately on the table at board level.
First, a change in the business model. Theoretically, providers would pay for the distribution network. A sort of interchange fee. (We haven’t heard any details about service provision.)
The issue here, as you correctly point out, is whether this fee is sufficient to maintain and update the network plus innovate. I suspect that it is not. The probability is that the network will fall prey to obsolescence or debt financing.
Further, if I am not mistaken, distribution requires liberalisation under EU laws. The fee for Enemalta may only be guaranteed through monopoly.
Second, probably a number of employees will be transferred to the new provider, offered early retirement or employed to maintain distribution.
On the one hand, this reduces overall cost incidence.
On the other hand, cost reduction is a very simplistic and short term view of growing a business and keeping it afloat.
Further, unless there is an iron hand and extensive retraining happens, process inefficiencies will be “cut” and “pasted” into the new organisation.
Parastatal companies are plagued by political appointees who, generally, work to maintain the status quo or are impeded from generating radical change.
Either Muscat is naive or he is resorting to trickery or there is something more going on.
One such “other thing that’s going on” lies in that only 103,000 families will benefit from overall reductions (the Times, yesterday).
Let us assume that families means households (a flimsy assumption).
According to the 2011 Census there are about 153,000 households.
This means that there is a captive market of 50,000 households that may see an increase in their tariffs. This market may be effectively partitioned because we can’t really work without electricity and there is only one provider (sounds like a recitation from Economics 101).
Muscat would still fulfil the promise of “on average tariff reduction”.
We’re all still guessing, guessing, guessing.
True, HP. The sad thing is that people are believing this spiel hook line and sinker. If you ask me, the Nationalists are weak in their argumentation (not their arguments).
It is as if their results over the past decades are left to speak for themselves. The attitude of “no explanation is necessary”.
People (and I count myself in this) need to be reminded:
(a) what the PN did, (b) what Labour didn’t do and (c) clarify myths like Playmobil was established through the efforts of Mintoff.
In this last respect, someone on the Times pointed out that Brand was set up in 1970. The counter argument was that, fine, but Mintoff got the to produce the Playmobil toys. This is bullocks.
The Playmobil toys were invented by Hans Beck (I believe that was the name of the CEO) and Inmold was established to cater for plastic injection moulding needs of Brand. I know this for a fact.
Since we’re doing the experts’ work, here’s more.
A September 2012 EU directive on energy efficiency obliges all operators to reduce their clients’ energy consumption by 1.5% from 2014.
RIght. If Enemalta will be the distributor and Caqnu the producer, then we’ll all be Enemalta clients, and it will be up to them to reduce our energy consumption. The producer, on the other hand, can over-produce to his heart’s content and sell the surplus to Sicily, as per Joseph Muscat’s plan. But whose cable will he use? Enemalta’s, or will the cable be sold/handed over to the private operator?
See what I mean about the bureaucratic train wreck and the details which everyone is skimming over?
I wonder where the proposed 200MW power station will be installed because up to now they just showed the gas storage tanks.
Will this plant be placed on pristine land at Delimara, or maybe offshore on some ship like the Sargas proposal, requiring enlargement of Delimara quay to accomodate that ship and the tankers which will unload gas/Hfo/diesel, with consequent destruction of the shoreline?
It is also interesting to note how Conrad Mizzi from being the head of IT at Enemalta back in 2006 ended up being Labour’s main speaker for the energy sector, placing previous speakers such as Leo Brincat, Joe Mizzi in the shadows.
Just like what Alfred Sant wanted to do with the Dockyard workers. Kept on the payroll but out of the docks. SANGISUGI, living off the blood of honest workers. That’s what Labour stands for.
I don’t get why all this fake concern for the employees.
I personally believe that the energy sector in a small nation like ours should be entirely state owned for strategic reasons, but so what if Enemalta employees are employed with the private company instead? (Almost) the same thing had happened with ARMS. How many of them were fired, I ask?
As long as they’re not sent packing, the only difference will be that the new company would need to make a profit because it won’t be possible to rely on state aid like Enemalta does. That usually translates into higher expectations of productivity and no more nofstanhari fis-sajf ħa jkollna ċans nistrieħu ftit qabel il-BBQ like it’s some God-given right. The employees’ loss would be the nation’s gain.
Who’s complaining?
The fact that he promises they get to keep their jobs when it’s clear what will happen.
You don’t enter into a gentlemen’s agreement with a politician, especially in the run up to an election. Simples.
The PN had made similar promises to Sea Malta and Drydocks workers years ago and we all know what happened there too.
In any case, it’s about time the Maltese workforce grew some balls.
It’s not fair that young adults and graduates are expected to give in a full day’s worth of work and have to learn to accept definite contracts, whereas their parents’ generation għaddejjin ipappuha id-dar mas-2pm fis-sajf.
Any political party that phases out this spoon-feeding gets my vote. Alas, I can only dream.
Management accounts and projections show that Enemalta will be profitable in 2015 without the need for further investment.
This will mean that Enemalta is in a position to lower tariffs. But that will only be the case if the current situation is allowed to take its course and is not interrupted by Labour’s plans.
If Labour is elected, Enemalta will have no way of becoming profitable, and THIS is what the Enemalta employees should fear. THIS is what the PN should be talking about.
Well at least he won’t be doing what Gonzi did with the Drydocks. Declared it bankrupt and sent all the workers packing.
[Daphne – That’s disingenuous, Silvio, you know that. Malta Drydocks had been bankrupt for years. Indeed, it was never going to be viable because the structure and employment level of a full naval shipyard were maintained thanks to the GWU and Labour. The drydocks bled Malta dry for three decades after the British navy left. Its employees were not sent packing. They were paid for nothing for many years, and then given golden handshakes, early retirement schemes and help in finding other work, which most of them have done, largely because they had alternative work already, I suppose. And why have you become such a Laburist all of a sudden, anyway? You used to say you turned against the Nationalist Party because you supported Dalli. Now that Dalli has been revealed as a crook, are you still supporting him? There must be some other reason.]
Dear Daphne, I don’t think you really expect me to give you an answer to the first part of your comment,reg,the drydocks, I am sure you perfectly know that remark was meant to just generate an argument and be a bit provocative.
The other part, your question why I have become a LABURIST, needs a very serious answer,some of which I am not going to go into, as this is neither the time nor the place, If some time we meet in private, I will first introduce myself to you and than I will tell you the hundred and one reason why I will not vote P.N
.
I never turned Laburist,and this I wrote on various occaisons,I will simply not vote P.N. as I do not trust many of the party’s exponents .They are not true NAtionalists but Opportunists, Their prsonal interest comes first and if you do not dance to their tune, watch it!
I supported John Dalli,who by the way has not yet been revealed a crook, because I liked the way he operated when minister, he got things done and he had an ear for suggestions that made buisness sense.
In closing, as I would not like to take too much of your space,I can honestly assure you that had you gone through some of the injustices that I suffered under MY PARTY, and especialy by one certain minister, without even a small degree of help from some others, you would not only have been hurt but you would, yes I am not ashamed of saying, be longing for Vengence.
I don’t care about my electricity/water bill, being a constientious consumer.
Having said that, MLP could give me my electricity and water for free and I still would not vote for them.
My life, my future, my family’s life and future is not based on the total amount of what is spent on electricity.
People are not looking at the bigger picture.
What else is Labour promising?
Absolutely nothing of substance.
Voting Labour based on electricity bills is just stupid. So trying to guess how they are going to do it is superfluous.