The sale of the government’s holdings in Tug Malta, Maltapost and Oil Tanking in a relatively short period calls for an explanation, said Malta Labour Party finance spokesman Charles Mangion.

He said these privatisation exercises were in conflict with the government’s budgetary estimates for 2007, since it had stated that it would not need to sell any of its assets in order to meet its and the European Central Bank’s aims.

Notwithstanding these estimates, said Dr Mangion, the government had sold a number of its assets in a period of just a month. Given that there had been no explanation for these sales, and that they had been made after the first six months of the year – ie, after the government’s financial statistics had been approved by the EU – the public had a right to know the reason for them.

He said the minister responsible for privatisation, Austin Gatt, should explain why his ministry’s budget estimates did not include these privatisations. He asked if the idea to sell the government’s holdings in the three companies had emerged all of a sudden and if the Privatisation Unit could confirm whether the privatisation process began after the budget was presented in parliament. He also asked the Prime Minister, in his capacity as Finance Minister, whether the sale was hastily prompted by the government’s spending exceeding the budgeted target by Lm15 million (EURO 34.94 million).

The MLP deputy leader insisted that the government should be answering these questions in order to retain the credibility of the public in the budget estimates. He insisted that if the Nationalist government was resorting to fiddling with its estimates in order to reach its political targets to the detriment of the Maltese, it would forfeit its last shreds of credibility following the repeated allegations of corruption.