Why PN’s cheap fuel demand is downright loony

I will be blunt, as it has to be said loud and clear. It was done in the past by Labour in Opposition – it was indeed their battle-cry – and now that same battle-cry, loony and downright irresponsible, has been taken over by the Nationalist Opposition and repeated in their budget proposals.

The call for cheap fuels by Simon Busuttil and his entourage, from Marthese Portelli to Tonio Fenech, can only be dubbed as loony. It is loony on many fronts.

On the economic front, let’s agree that all fuel in Malta is imported: what this means is that the more fuel burnt, the more money we are taking out of our economy… literally exporting money to other countries.

To make up for this, responsible governments – that includes the Nationalist Party in government – charge heavy excise duties on fuels, over and above VAT. In Malta it’s 51c9 per litre of diesel and 44c2 per litre of petrol. In countries renowned for their seriousness when it comes to tackling pollution and providing good public services, like Finland and Denmark, it is even higher.

Excise duty is a very important source of revenue for the exchequer. It funds public services, and it should be invested in clean energy solutions, public transport and infrastructure for alternative means of transport like bicycles and pedelecs.

It is also a major source of revenue to pay for the treatment of respiratory diseases and cancer caused by our polluted air, the hidden costs of the use of fuel hardly anyone talks about.

So basically, those who call for cheap fuel are calling for more cars on the road, less judicious use of fuel, more deaths from respiratory illnesses and cancer and less money for public services. They are in favour of the so-called ‘free market’ at the expense of public health and a good quality of life.

Joseph Muscat, knowing it to be a populist issue to gain cheap political points, crowed and cackled on the price of fuel before the election. His loony battle-cry in favour of polluted air and cancer has been taken over by Simon Busuttil and his pseudo-environmentalist party.

The irony is that Busuttil’s cheap fuel proposal sits side by side in the PN’s budget proposals document calling for a “greener economy”. When the whole world is talking about tackling dangerous climate change and weaning the economy off fossil fuels, the PN wants the use of fossil fuels to go up. Great!

We can only move towards a green economy, not to mention a healthier society and cleaner air by investing heavily and incentivizing programmes for research and development of technologies to decouple the economy from energy use, the incentivizing of clean and renewable sources of energy and energy efficiency.

And we have to think out of the box in the mass transportation sector, coupled with courageous policies like massive pedestrianisation of congested and polluted areas – making them only reachable by public transport and clean forms of personal transport.

The simple fact that the PL and PN just swap battle-cries depending on which side of parliament they sit just goes to show how shallow and devoid of principles and vision these parties are. They favour votes over the prevention of pollution and its effects on our health.