Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/434696
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 17 DECEMBER 2014 3 News PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD President visits MediaToday PRESIDENT Marie Louise Coleiro Preca visited the Media- Today offices in San Gwann yesterday. Coleiro Preca was welcomed by the di- rectors of MediaTo- day, Saviour Balzan and Roger de Giorgio. The President, who took office in April, giving up her seat in parliament where she served as Family and Social Solidarit y Min- ister, met the staff at the MT offices. During a frank and informal discussion which took the better part of an hour, jour- nalists raised various issues with the Presi- dent, including con- stitutional reform and her speech last Satur- day marking Republic Day. Energy deal debate postponed at Opposition's request TIM DIACONO A parliamentary debate on the re- cently signed deal between Enemalta and Shanghai Electric Power has been postponed. The government said that the par- liamentary debate on the deal that had originally been planned for this evening has been postponed at the Opposition's request, due to the fact that their leader, Simon Busuttil, will today fly to Brussels for a European People's Party summit in Brussels. "We believe that this deal is the largest foreign investment that Malta has ever seen, and it is there- fore crucial for it to be discussed in Parliament," the government said in a statement. "We therefore accepted the Opposition's request to postpone the debate to a day that is convenient for its leader." "This deal will save Enemalta from the precarious situation it had been left in and will place the energy sec- tor on a solid platform, creating new opportunities for the benefit of the economy. We therefore believe that Parliament should discuss this stra- tegic investment as soon as possible." The final agreement between En- emalta and SEP was signed last week and will see the Chinese state-owned firm become the operator of the De- limara power station extension – the BWSC plant – following a €320 mil- lion capital injection. The deal will see €250 million com- ing in this year: €100 million which will be injected directly into Enemal- ta and €150 million for the Delimara 3 plant (BWSC plant). €70 million will be invested next year for the con- version of the plant to gas. On Monday, PN deputy leader Mario de Marco called on Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to "come clean" and publish all contracts signed with Shanghai Electric and Electrogas, which was awarded the contract to construct the new power plant. He added that so far, the govern- ment had failed to disclose the rates and deadlines for the BWSC plant's conversion to gas, the purchase of the plant by the Chinese state owned company and the guarantees over the fate of Enemalta's workers. Insisting that the government can- not expect to hold a serious debate without giving the opposition time to analyse the contracts, de Marco said that so far, the government had only announced the investment principles without disclosing the commitments agreed on the sale of the BWSC plant to the Chinese company, the power purchase agreements signed with Shanghai Electric and Electrogas, the deal with Electrogas over the con- struction of the new power plant and Enemalta's seven-year business plan.