Parliament to discuss SEP-Enemalta acquisition on Wednesday

Parliament will debate the agreement between Chinese state-owned firm Shanghai Electric Power and its €320 million acquisition for a 33% stake in state utility Enemalta on Wednesday.

Following a small debate at the start of a House Business Committee meeting, Speaker Anglu Farrugia said that the debate will be held on Wednesday without the government having to disclose any more information about the deal.

Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi presented a motion for the debate last week after the Opposition insisted that the government reveal more information about the deal before any parliamentary discussion.

“We don’t yet have the information about the contracts that the government had signed with Shanghai Electric Power,” Opposition MP David Agius said during the House Business Committee meeting. “The Opposition is not in sync with the government with regards the information we know about the deal. How can we discuss these contracts when we don’t know what the contracts say?”

Opposition deputy leader Mario de Marco said that his party was not requesting the government to publish any commercially sensitive clauses in the contracts.

“Surely, not all the clauses are commercially sensitive though,” de Marco said. “The government should say how many commercially sensitive clauses exist within the contracts and publish the rest.”

Home affairs minister Carmelo Abela insisted that the government has already published a lot of information regarding the agreement, ostensibly referring to the agreement-in-principle between Shanghai Electric Power and Enemalta that he had tabled in Parliament last week.

Labour MP Deborah Schembri pointed out that the original SEP debate was set for the 17 December but was postponed on the Opposition’s request because their leader Simon Busuttil was abroad on that date.

“They hadn’t come up with the arguments for postponement that they’re coming up with now,” Schembri said.