Updated | Deeds 'publicly available' • PN denounces 'quiet signing' of contracts

The Nationalist Party has accused the government of having rendered its transparency pledge “a joke”, hiding public agreements and contracts signed with third parties.

The PN listed a series of public deeds on the transfer of public lands to Enemalta, that stayed unpublished because of the government’s insistence not to present the contracts in parliament. The PN said the contracts were signed before the government finalised its deal with Shanghai Electric Power, the Chinese investors who bought a 33% share in Enemalta.

In a reaction the Ministry for the Energy said that the deeds referred to by the Opposition were “ public deeds which have been available to the general public”.

“It is increasingly becoming evident that the opposition hasn’t accepted how government attracted the biggest foreign investment of €320 million to our shores in the energy sector,” the ministry said, adding that the previous administration had valued Enemalta at €1.

Shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi said that the list includes the land of the Marsa power station acquired by the Lands Department from special purpose vehicle Vault Finance; the grant of 310,000 square metres of public land for the installation of PV panels to Enemalta plc; three contracts for the lease of land in Marsa, Marsaxlokk and Ghaxaq for a total of 190 years altogether; the sale of land at Has Saptan, Ghaxaq and the Marsaxlokk terminal from Petromed Company to Enemed Company; and the lease agreement between Enemalta and subsidiary D3 Power Generation Limited, and the rental contract to ElectroGas for the construction of an LNG power plant.

The ministry however went on to explain that Enemalta had a leasehold with Vault Finance for the use of the Marsa Power Station site, which was entered into in 2012. An agreement signed with Vault Finance in 2012 pre-established the conditions of acquisition for the release of the leasehold of the Marsa Power Station site from ownership of Vault Finance Ltd.

In preparation for the creation of Enemalta plc in August 2014 the government, in consultation with Enemalta, availed itself of the provisions of the 2012 agreement with Vault Finance Ltd to acquire the temporary emphyteusis for the Marsa Power Station site at the pre-determined conditions of the agreement signed in 2012.

“This procedure facilitated the process for transfer of assets and liabilities into the newly created Enemalta plc,” the Ministry said.

“Separately, the carve out of the profit-making Petroleum Division of Enemalta into the newly created Enemed, which is entirely owned by Government, was also announced in Parliament.”

The ministry said the government’s roadmap for energy and Enemalta plc was delivering results. These, it said, were commended by the European Union and the credit rating agencies, including the recent Standard and Poor’s upgrade of Enemalta’s stand-alone credit rating.

Secretary-general Chris Said said that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was deliberately keeping these contracts under wraps.

MORE: Solar roof space leased at 50 cents per square metre to Enemalta

MaltaToday has revealed that the land at Marsa has already been identified for future commercial development. MaltaToday also requested the deed transferring the land in Marsa from the government to Enemalta, but this was not acceded by either Enemalta or the Government Property Department and then only released through the office of the parliamentary secretariat for lands.

The deed transferring the land to Enemalta was signed a few days before the publication of a legal notice that turned Enemalta into a public limited liability company last August. Had the law come into effect before the transfer, the government would not have been able to transfer the land just by a public deed.

The legal notice exempted the lands transferred to Enemalta from customary rules that govern the disposal of public land, which can only be transferred to third parties by a parliamentary resolution or by public tender. The law exempted any land owned by Enemalta plc or its successors, from the Disposal of Government Land Act (DGLA), meaning that such land transfers do not require any further authorization in terms of the DGLA.

“It should not have been the Opposition’s role to publish these documents. Even more so, the legal notice LN302 specifically titled ‘removal of restrictive conditions order’. It is evident that the government is hiding, but the question is in whose interests?” Azzopardi said.

The MP said the Lands Department had been under a lot of pressure in August to finish the contracts in less than 24 hours, staying up until 4am. He said the government was hiding its tracks and covering its back.

“Why was all that rush necessary in August? Perhaps pressure was made by investors?” Azzopardi asked.

Asked why the legal notice had not been contested in parliament, Azzopardi said the Opposition had used the parliamentary debate on energy “to raise the same arguments on transparency and the government's secrecy surrounding the Enemalta deal.”

“Instead of discussing these contracts in parliament, this government refuses to allow the Opposition and the public from knowing about them so that it can hammer out agreements behind our backs,” Said said.

Shadow minister for social policy Paula Mifsud Bonnici added that other contracts that remain unpublished include the full contract government signed with Henley & Partners on the Individual Investor Programme – a redacted version of which was tabled in the House; the sale of the BWSC plant to Shanghai Electric Power (SEP); the SEP acquisition of 33% in Enemalta plc; the ElectroGas contract; the hedging contract with SOCAR of Azerbaijan; the Barts MOU; and the ALESA contract for the operation of Malta’s public transport system.