Beppe Fenech Adami: ‘Prime Minister should concentrate on cleaning up his own mess’

Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami defended his father’s track record as he hit back at Prime Minister Robert Abela’s comments on the Manoel Island concession.

Beppe Fenech Adami insisted that when the concession agreement with MIDI plc was finalised in 2000, the Labour Party, then in Opposition, voted in favour of the project.

He was reacting to Abela’s comments earlier on Wednesday when the prime minister said Manoel Island and Tigné Point were gifted by then Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami “to his friends”. Abela criticised the concession, insisting it was of no benefit to the people, pinning the blame of the Fenech Adami administration.

“Rather than blame the [Nationalist] Opposition, Robert Abela should concentrate on cleaning up the mess he himself created,” Beppe Fenech Adami told MaltaToday on Wednesday afternoon.

The PN MP said the Labour Party in government between 1996 and 1998, led by Prime Minister Alfred Sant and with Robert Abela’s father, President Emeritus George Abela as deputy leader for party affairs, had negotiated with the consortium and later on in 2000 voted for the concession agreement in parliament.

Beppe Fenech Adami insisted obligations related to the concession laid down by a Nationalist government were honoured, and millions of euro were invested in restoration works at both Tigné and Manoel Island.

“It is evident to all that in the last 12 years of a Labour-led government, it was Abela, his colleagues and consultants which intentionally closed an eye to apparent breaches of concession conditions to the detriment of the Maltese people,” Fenech Adami told this newspaper.

“It is enough to see that up to a few weeks and months ago, Abela and his predecessor Joseph Muscat were hailing the project as the blueprint of how private investment and the welfare of citizens can work together.”

Fenech Adami also insisted that none of the allegations of abuse of power and corruption Abela was “pitifully” making today about his father [Eddie Fenech Adami] were ever made back then, let alone proven.

“My father was never a leader of a party or government embroiled in proven corruption scandals,” Beppe Fenech Adami said.

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