‘Government refusing to provide information to Parliament’ – PN

The Nationalist Party accused the government of repeatedly failing to provide information to Parliament when requested to do so.

“Yesterday the Prime Minister refused to divulge the names of persons selected by government to sit on selection boards for promotions and appointments in public entities,” the PN said in a statement. “In a reply given to parliamentary question 14468 in February, the Prime Minister had informed the House that these names were forwarded to the Public Service Commission which in turn approved them.

"However, when pressed by Opposition Deputy leader Mario de Marco to publish these names by means of parliamentary question number 14768, the Prime Minister yesterday replied that this list will not be made public.”

The PN pointed out that Labour called on the government to stick to its pre-electoral promises of transparency and meritocracy and to publish the names of people who sit on such selection boards.

“This government is persisting in its strategy of keeping information under wraps,” the PN said. “The House of Representatives is the highest institution of the country. It is there to keep a check on government and should be assisted and not hindered by government in carrying out this important duty. By repeatedly failing to provide Parliament with information, government is impeding the representatives of the people to carry out their role effectively.”

Portelli questions 'commercial' nature of Enemalta worker list

Earlier, shadow energy minister Marthese Portelli challenged Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi to explain why her request for the number of workers that Enemalta requires to operate has been turned down.

In response to a parliamentary question by Portelli, Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne, speaking in Mizzi’s absence, said that he couldn’t disclose such information as it “has commercial value to Enemalta and its disclosure can prejudice its business operations”.

“All I’m after is a number,” Portelli said. “The truth is that Konrad Mizzi has a record of not answering my questions, so I challenge him to tell me why the information I’m after is so commercially sensitive.”  

In a separate question, Portelli asked Mizzi why not all the Enemalta workers within the Engineering Resources Ltd were offered temporary redeployment to the Environmental Monitoring Services. In his response, Mizzi said that Engineering Resources Ltd employees get transferred after filing a request or after accepting a transfer that is offered to them according to their skills.  

Portelli challenged Mizzi to explain who offers new jobs to Engineering Resources workers and who assesses their skills beforehand.