‘Labour defends Mizzi because former minister has dirt on colleagues’ - Fenech Adami

The Nationalist MP and chairman of the public accounts committee Beppe Fenech Adami has accused the Labour administration of defending former energy minister Konrad Mizzi in avoiding his duty before the PAC and testify on the €200 million Electrogas gas plant.

Mizzi is also being accused of having passed on information to the Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech about government projects. “He was leaking information to Fenech, the man accused of being the mastermind in the Caruana Galizia assassination, to give him an advantage. The minister was helping Fenech to give him a leg-up over others, to allow him to take more of the pie.”

Fenech Adami also accused Prime Minister Robert Abela of failing to severe the Labour administration from Mizzi, despite having sacked him from the Labour parliamentary group. “Labour cannot severe itself from Mizzi, it cannot condemn what he did… it keeps defending Mizzi. We want to know from Mizzi how Electrogas was selected for the Delimara plant, his role in the Montenegro wind farm project, and why he set up a secret offshore company in Panama.

“Mizzi is a coward. He knows Robert Abela’s government will defend him. If they had to discard Mizzi, they would be discarding someone who has a lot of dirt on government ministers involved in corruption.”

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Fenech Adami also demanded that the Commissioner of Police release a statement on what police investigators have so far managed to uncover in their investigations on the Panama Papers, which implicated Mizzi and former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri, as well as to investigate Konrad Mizzi on having exchanged confidential information with Yorgen Fenech.

Government members on parliament’s Public Accounts Committee last week refused to support a motion of censure presented by Opposition MPs after Konrad Mizzi snubbed the committee. They said they had no problem in issuing another request for Mizzi to testify on the Electrogas contract but insisted the former minister was within his right when he decided not to appear before the PAC.

Opposition members wanted the committee to declare Mizzi’s actions as “deplorable”, while insisting he be called in to testify again.

The MP, implicated in the Panama Papers scandal and sacked from Labour in 2020 following the Montenegro scandal linking an Enemalta investment to a Yorgen Fenech company, was the brains behind the Delimara gas plant project. Mizzi claimed the PAC was “nothing more than a partisan attack on the project which shifted energy generation in Malta from polluting Heavy Fuel Oil to cleaner gas and renewable energy, a project that has brought so many benefits to the Maltese and Gozitan people, as well as to the economy of our country.”

READ ALSO: Mizzi refuses to face MPs over Electrogas

The PAC is chaired by the Opposition but government has a majority. It is carrying out a follow-up grilling on the NAO report into the Electrogas power station.

Committee chair Beppe Fenech Adami said Mizzi’s decision was “unprecedented”, and the committee should send a clear message. “Let’s stop speaking about rights, but about duties, especially from a former minister, and on such a big project,” he said.

When discussing the way forward, the government members argued that due to the unprecedented decision, the committee should request a ruling from the Speaker. “We are not agreeing on procedure, and that is why we have to go for a ruling,” Parliamentary Secretary Alex Muscat said. Before voting on the Opposition motion to censure Mizzi, the Labour Whip said government members would not be voting in favour, and if the committee wanted to take any further steps, it should be the Speaker who rules on a way forward.

The motion did not pass. Government members also voted in favour of a fresh request to be submitted for Mizzi’s testimony.