These are early days and the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives has only concluded two meetings on the Auditor General’s report on fuel procurement at Enemalta.

But already after these two meetings it can be said the Opposition has successfully deconstructed the spin which was woven at the time when the NAO report was concluded.

This should not be construed as a defence of Austin Gatt. With bendy-buses being the toast of the town, Dr Gatt has more than his share of things for which he was responsible and regarding which he is held accountable by the general public.

But the ministerial responsibility regarding fuel procurement and Enemalta that has so far emerged from the seven hour discussion at PAC on Monday has shed doubt on much of the hype and spin by the PL media and Gatt-haters over the past months.

To summarise:

-          It is not true that the NAO report claims Dr Gatt interfered in the price of fuel. It all centres around an email that Dr Gatt sent to the Enemalta chairman (Alex Tranter) in which Dr Gatt gave a ministerial order that Enemalta must not hedge upwards of $81.80 a barrel hinting this was a government (Cabinet) decision.

-          In fact, oil prices (in US$ dollars to avoid confusion as that is the currency used in the report), wildly oscillating in those days of crisis, did go from $146 a barrel to below this $81.80 benchmark (by some $3). In 2010 Enemalta lost $3 million on fuel but recuperated $17 million on foreign exchange, thus netting a $14 million profit. When Owen Bonnici disingenuously tried to split the two and claimed Dr Gatt had lost Malta $3 million, he was repeatedly told by the NAO staff he could not split the two.

-          At PAC on Monday, Beppe Fenech Adami quoted from the Enemalta Act which states that the minister can and must give Enemalta directives ‘of a generic or specific nature’. Nevertheless, NAO stated (and its officials continued to repeat) that they still felt the minister should have intervened on policy but not on a strategic level when the Fuel Procurement Committee was made up of highly-trained experts. The two, the Opposition members and NAO, agreed to disagree.

-          That was about it: so much so that Dr Bonnici pressed the NAO hard to declare more than what was stated in the report and, when this was politely declined, he launched into all the other issues which regard Dr Gatt’s ministerial handling from BWSC to the rest of Dr Gatt’s ministerial portfolio.

-          It must be pointed out that the NAO investigation, spurred by a Leo Brincat speech in June 2011, only covers the years 2008 to 2012. The allegations which the police are investigating and the arraignment of well-known  persons such as former Enemalta chairman and Chamber of Commerce president Tancred Tabone, regard the period immediately preceding this, although this was still under Dr Gatt’s ministerial responsibility. Many of the NAO recommendations (except the one that says calls during the hedging phase must be recorded) have already been put in place by Enemalta during the compilation of the report.

-          The NAO was quite right, in our opinion, to defend its staff from being named as the compilers of the report, but that still leaves the country with a nagging suspicion that maybe someone has it in for Dr Gatt, seeing the forcefulness of some of the comments in the report. But the NAO is certainly wrong to have interviewed just a few of officials still at Enemalta, but none who have left the company, and none of those who have been named in the report, especially Dr Gatt. Certainly the NAO had a duty to see what Dr Gatt had to say instead of which he has become victim of this trial by media)

-          The NAO is right when it points out the many faults and defects uncovered during the investigation, such as lack of proper records and minutes, and ensuring that all this was corrected. It was also right to describe its inquiry as a performance audit and not an investigation (for which it would have had to have PAC approval). One must remember that following the publication of the report, Minister Konrad Mizzi sent it to the police for them to see if they needed to investigate. The police have not done anything in this sense yet and NAO clearly said that were they to have uncovered criminal acts, they would have reported them to the police, as they are duty bound, but they did not find anything criminal in their investigations.

So, like a soap bubble that is exposed to the sun, so too all the PL spin in this regard has burst.