‘Debate me on live TV if you have the balls’, Marlene Farrugia tells Mizzi

Independent MP Marlene Farrugia has challenged health and energy minister Konrad Mizzi to a one on one debate on his offshore company in Panama on live TV, “if he has the balls to do so”.

“Mizzi told me yesterday to table a no confidence motion against him, that he knows he will win because he and his friends have a parliamentary majority and are stuck to their seats of power,” she wrote on Facebook.

In response, NET TV presenter Norman Vella invited Farrugia and Mizzi to debate on Thursday’s edition of his programme ‘Mhux Ghax Jimpurtani’.  

The former Labour MP said that her former PL parliamentary group colleagues are “scared of airing their true views in public”, but that she is ready to file a no confidence motion “when the time is right”.

“I challenge Mizzi to a one on one debate about the subject on the state broadcaster. If he has the balls, he will try and beat me outside parliament and not inside it, where he enjoys the comfort of his scared and disillusioned friends.

“I’m ready when you are Konrad. Let’s have a phenomenal debate.”

 Marlene Farrugia had attended a PN-organised protest against corruption on Sunday, in light of revelations that both Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri own offshore companies in Panama and trusts in New Zealand.

Mizzi in Parliament on Monday urged his opponents to file a no-confidence motion against him, and said he was willing to hold the debate as early as Wednesday.

“Hand on heart I will do it. I made an error of judgement [when setting up the company], but my intent was noble from the start, to help my family out.”