The Labour Party yesterday called on the Prime Minister to intervene in the situation that has arisen in connection with the chairman of the Water Services Corporation.
It said that two days ago it had made a series of questions about the business relationship which the chairman of the Water Services Corporation had with the Polidano Group, which has awarded contracts by the WSC. Mr Falzon, a former Nationalist minister, had revealed his relationship in a letter to a newspaper.
The Labour Party said the questions were addressed both to Mr Falzon and to Minister Austin Gatt, who is responsible politically for the WSC. Though it had been two days since the questions had been asked, there had been total silence on the part of the chairman and of the minister. No reply had been given by Mr Falzon or the minister to the questions put.
As he himself had admitted, Mr Falzon has had a relationship with the Polidano Group since 2002, involving residential property development and other projects. Among the WSC contracts won by the Polidano Group, there is one relating to the drainage treatment plant planned for the north of Malta. The contract was awarded to Polidano in 2004 – two years after Mr Falzon started his business relationship with the company.
These facts, the Labour Party said, raised serious questions about the possibility, actual or potential, of a serious conflict of interest on the part of Mr Falzon and about why it had taken Mr Falzon five years to reveal his business relationship with the Polidano Group.
As Mr Falzon receives some Lm15,600 a year from public funds for his WSC chairman position, which he has described as a part-time job, he had and still has every duty to answer. Minister Austin Gatt had the same duty because after all, he had the political responsibility for goings-on in entities for which he was responsible.
The Labour Party said there had been no reply to date. Usually Lawrence Gonzi’s government and his entities and corporations are quick to reply to speeches and statements made by the Labour Party. But in the case of questions relating to the possibility of a serious conflict of interest on the part of Mr Falzon, there has been no reply.
This total silence not only did not offer any peace of mind but raised even more questions. Undoubtedly, the Labour Party said, both Mr Falzon and Dr Gatt had at hand all the facts through which they could offer replies to the questions made by the Labour Party. So it was condemnable that the replies had been withheld after 48 hours since the questions were put.
Mr Falzon’s statement with One News that he wanted to take advice about the answers to the questions made by the Labour Party was a weak pretext to avoid answering the questions. The WSC chairman needed no advice for him to give the facts about his business relationship with Polidano Group. It would be interesting for Mr Falzon to say what advice he was seeking, and who he was seeking it from.
In light of the total silence there has been so far on the part of the WSC chairman and Minister Gatt, the Labour Party said it was asking Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi personally to intervene to ensure that, in the name of accountability and transparency, the facts about the business relationship would be established clearly.
Until this was done, there would be questions about the possibility of a serious conflict of interest on the part of Mr Falzon, as chairman of one of the main corporations in the country.