The chairman of parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, Labour MP Charles Mangion, has asked the committee’s members to consider whether it would be better to ask for a report from the Auditor General before they consider a request by Investments Minister Austin Gatt.

Dr Gatt, himself a member of the PAC, wrote to Mr Mangion on Thursday asking him to launch a PAC investigation into claims by the Opposition Leader about tenders relating to sewage treatment plants.

Mr Mangion wrote to PAC members yesterday, referring them to Dr Gatt’s request, and asking if they agreed with him that they needed first to investigate comments by Dr Gatt made in a 9 August letter to the chairman of the Water Services Corporation about “Variation orders relating to the Malta and Gozo Sewage Treatment Plants”. In his letter, the minister made “very valid” remarks about variations in

capital works, wrote Mr Mangion, and the PAC should know whether these were justified or not, and if they were, who was responsible.

Mr Mangion suggested in his letter that for the PAC properly to accede to Dr Gatt’s request for an investigation, it needed first to have a comprehensive report from the Auditor General on the allegations referred to by Dr Gatt in his 9 August letter. The Auditor General would also need to investigate the remarks the minister had made to the WSC about overruns.

Following the letter to the PAC members, Dr Gatt wrote to Mr Mangion, saying he had no objection to his suggestion. But at the same time, Dr Gatt added, he was sorry that Mr Mangion had avoided his request, which did not relate to cost overruns but to serious and specific allegations made by the Opposition Leader.

Dr Gatt added that for now he was accepting Mr Mangion’s suggestion that the Auditor General draw up a report on cost overruns. But if Mr Mangion’s suggestion was intended to delay the public inquiry requested by Opposition Leader Alfred Sant, he would start considering Mr Mangion’s suggestion as intended to avoid requiring Dr Sant to testify to the PAC about his allegations.

Dr Gatt wrote that he was sure Mr Mangion and the PAC members would agree with him that the claims made by Dr Sant could not be ignored. He was therefore insisting on the public inquiry that the opposition had requested and he was requesting that the PAC meet next week to begin the procedures without any loss of time.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued yesterday evening, the Water Services Corporation said it welcomed the investigation ordered by Dr Gatt.

The corporation said it would

cooperate to the full by, among other things, making available all the

necessary documentation.