Tonio Fenech on Electrogas: ‘Today I call it the pantomime of Alice in Wonderland’

It was in the heat of the 2013 general election campaign when then finance minister Tonio Fenech labelled the Labour Party’s energy plan “Alice in Wonderland”.

Eleven years later, Fenech has gone one step further in his criticism of the Electrogas power station: “I called it Alice in Wonderland… today, I call it the pantomime of Alice in Wonderland.”

The fresh description came in the midst of a lively exchange between Fenech and government MPs in parliament’s Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday. The committee continued with its scrutiny of the National Audit Office’s report on the Electrogas power station procurement process.

"You only have to look at the NAO report to understand why the whole project was a pantomime, starting with the broken promises of having a 10-year price stability agreement," Fenech said.

The former Nationalist MP has been almost seven years out of politics, which begs the question as to why he was asked to testify in the PAC about his time as minister between 2008 and 2013.

It was a question an incredulous Fenech asked MPs: “I am still trying to understand why I have been called to testify because Electrogas was not even on the horizon in that period.”

This was Fenech’s second appearance in front of the PAC after government MPs requested that he testify.

But even though he abandoned politics in 2017, Fenech still retained the same fighting spirit, defending the decisions taken by the Gonzi administration between 2008 and 2013.

The period was characterised by the financial crisis, the sovereign debt crisis and also the Libya crisis, prompting the government to increase utility bills to make up for higher oil prices and adopt austerity measures.

“With the benefit of hindsight, I can say unemployment remained low, the economy continued moving forward… oil prices increased and we had to respond and one of the measures was higher utility bills but we tried compensating by cutting income tax and introducing other targeted support measures,” Fenech responded to questions put to him by Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo.

When asked whether he would give the current administration advice to remove the energy subsidies and instead increase electricity prices, Fenech hit back: “Since when is government seeking my consultancy services? If government wants my advice, it can pay for it.”

The former minister said the hefty subsidies are masking a reality where people who can afford to pay higher prices for the electricity they consume are not trying to save on consumption because they believe the country is shouldering the burden.

He insisted the IMF had also suggested the phasing-out of energy subsidies and instead replacing these with targeted support for vulnerable families.

Fenech questioned the lack of transparency on how the millions in subsidies were being spent in view of fluctuating international oil and gas prices.

“Government is subsidising energy with €300 million but bills have not been reduced by that amount. Something tells me there is something that is not right but we can never know because the government does not publish the arrangements it has to keep prices stable,” he said.

Queried whether he was proud of the Gonzi administration’s decisions, Fenech avoided the bait: “I am proud with the service I gave my country.”