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KPMG report on cheaper energy tariffs finished months ago
A KPMG report that examined solutions to cheaper tariffs, including Sargas proposal, was finalised months ago yet not considered by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.
A KPMG report proposing detailed recommendations for cheaper energy and water tariffs was finalised months ago, yet was not considered or discussed by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.
Weekly newspaper Illum reveals that the report on cheaper energy tariffs which Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi claimed the governemnt has been working for the past year and a half, was in fact finalised months ago.
"Work on studies has been on going for the past year and a half, including on cost benefit analysis [of the Sargas proposal]," Gonzi told Labour Leader Joseph Muscat during the Xarabank debate on Friday.
"I don't know what [Joseph Muscat] is doing. I don't. What I do know is what I am doing. And I know what we are studying. And we will see," Gonzi told the audience.
"So far we have doubts about its viability," Gonzi said, adding that "the first time this would have an effect would be in around five years' time."
However, weekly newspaper Illum reveals that according to a source within the Office of the Prime Minister, the report that Gonzi was referring to was finished sometime between the last week of June and the first week of July, and sets forth detailed and positive recommendations in exhaustive detail.
However, the weekly paper reveals, the conclusions set forth in the KPMG report were not given serious consideration by the Nationalist Administration. The report's proposals were immediately met by a negative reaction.
At the end of 2011, Sargas and two of its engineering partners, DSME and SNC-Lavalin, proposed a feasibility study to verify the conditions necessary for a new power plant that can run on either gas or 'biopaste' to complement the existing Delimara power station extension that will run on heavy fuel oil.
The Sargas proposal is an innovative one that, if realised, would mean that the Government would be able to begin fashioning a solution to the problem of increasingly expensive energy and water tariffs.
The Illum report insists that Gonzi was not even informed of the KPMG report's completion in July, which is complete with detailed workings regarding by how much the tarffis could be decreased.
According to the OPM source, "they will never accept a company like this unless there is the involvement of the same group of negotiators."
The source also reveals there was also no effort by the Finance Ministry for the conclusions of the report to be analysed.
It is not know why the Labour Opposition is not requesting that a copy of this report be tabled in Parliament.
