A new television station has hit the country and it already has bumper viewership. The meetings of the Public Accounts Committee, which are streamed on www.parlament.mt (specifically http://www.parlament.mt/sittingdetails?sid=4335&l=1&le gcat=13&forcat=4) have started to attract a mass audience. Last Tuesday, no less than 1,200 tuned in to watch the testimony (I would not say interrogation, though that is what it sounded like) of Alex Tranter, the Enemalta chair- man for most of the time regarding which the National Audit Office conducted its inquiry (again, not an investi- gation).
Mr Tranter was chairman from 1 July 2005 to 31 May 2010 and the NAO inquiry was from 2008 to 2010. As I watched people entering The Palace, I noticed that other people, called to appear at the inquiry, such as the person who succeeded Mr Tranter as chairman, Edmond Gatt Baldacchino, were accompanied by their lawyers. Not so Mr Tranter.
One other person who has yet to appear, former CEO Pippo Pandolfino, actually walked into the room where the PAC was meeting and was hurriedly bundled out. For, you see, PAC had decided that people waiting to appear before it were to sit in a room, under watch, and without their smartphones or iPads, etc through which they could follow what was being said.
But as PAC took the whole evening with Mr Tranter, these people, who were stuck in a room with nothing to do, presumably then went home and saw the whole thing and read about it the next day. Now PAC is due to meet tomorrow from 9.30am to 1.30pm, on Thursday from 9am to noon and on Friday from 3 to 7pm. Unless the committee has changed its mind, the persons to appear before it include Mr Gatt Baldacchino and for- mer CEOs Pippo Pandolfino and Anton Galea, who, being the only one still in employment at Enemalta, was the one who gave NAO the information it asked for. PAC may also decide to ask the three Personal Assistants to the chairman in Mr Tranter’s time – Bronja Mercieca, Anna Diss and Maria Axisa – to appear before it.
Other Enemalta officials are still waiting to be sum- moned and then, sometime in the future, the politicians will presumably be asked to appear, with Austin Gatt of course being the star witness. Parl.tv is due to increase the number of people who tune in. I know that Tuesday’s meeting has already been covered in the media, especially through this new fad of minute- by-minute coverage but while it gains in immediacy, I feel it loses on perspective.
The following is my personal impression, obtained while sitting for four and a half hours on Tuesday. I have never met Mr Tranter but from his testimony on Tuesday, while I respect his expertise, I couldn’t help but note that he seemed to have allowed himself to become the fall guy. His best line of defence was wrestled out of him almost as an afterthought, and maybe from questions by the PL team. It is true, too true, that the Fuel Procurement Commit- tee did not take any minutes of its meetings and Mr Tranter himself said that “with hindsight” they should have taken minutes. He also volunteered the damaging information that he adopted the procedure from the preceding chairman and did not ask himself whether that was the best way to do things. He also admitted he did not know, until last Sunday, that FPCs before December 2003 took minutes.
But he neglected to point out, until he revealed this as an afterthought and in reply to some questions, that after each and every meeting, the CEO, at least Mr Pandolfino, used to send him an email detailing what had been decided, even though he had been present at the same meeting. That served as a sort of minute of the meeting. On some occasions Mr Tranter sent this email to the minister or reported the gist of it. This undermines, in a serious manner, the assertion by NAO that they could not find any backing documentation to explain the FPC’s decisions and why it bought from this supplier rather than from another. Mr Tranter explained how NAO itself traced each and every decision it wanted to, although he admitted the process was a laborious one. But NAO admitted no one had told it about the email record and the NAO officials got quite hot under the collar when this was pointed out to them. The process had been a rather flawed one from the beginning. NAO asked Enemalta and its present officials but did not seek to question Mr Tranter and the other top officials.
For anyone who understands how things work out in Malta with a change of government in the offing, it is clear that more people should have been contacted and questioned if the inquiry was not to become a one-track one. Much was made by the government side in its questions of matters that go beyond the NAO timeline and its term of reference. Mr Tranter’s connection with Enemalta goes back years. He was an Enemalta-sponsored student worker and his specialization was energy generation. Then he wandered off into private enterprise and became CEO of Zaren Vassallo’s homes for the elderly company. From there, he was chosen by Austin Gatt to replace Tancred Tabone. The PAC members, in my opinion, neglected to ask Mr Tranter whether Dr Gatt had told him why he decided to replace Mr Tabone (a very important question in the circumstances) and whether Dr Gatt had given him any brief. Mr Tranter himself volunteered he was not given any handover.
Mr Tranter also admitted his wife is a distant relative of Dr Gatt. Parliamentary Secretary Owen Bonnici once again referred to the court proceedings and evidence that surfaced in court of corruption allegations even if these regarded the period during which Mr Tranter was not the chairman and even if this period was not the period studied by the NAO. Dr Bonnici had some searching questions to ask Mr Tranter as to why he left Enemalta and regarding the company to which he moved, but Mr Tranter explained he joined a foreign company Sunrays, which did project development, but this was bought by US company Sun- power Corporation in 2010 and later on in 2011 Total bought two thirds of it. Total is, of course, the mother company of Totsa, on which the corruption allegations centre. Mr Tranter also excluded categorically ever meeting Frank Sammut, who used to be Mr Enemalta before his time.
Most of the PAC time was used up, I am sorry to say, about trivialities or what look like trivialities. Mr Tran- ter read out a copy of a memorandum he sent to NAO after reading its conclusions, since it did not interview him. Then a lot of time was taken while he defended why no minutes were taken (only for him to admit later that ‘with hindsight’ they should have). Then we went into whether the procedural document was actually a policy document or not. Then whether there was a policy vacuum or not. Then Mr Tranter revealed there was a very important Enemalta pre-election dossier which, to everyone’s surprise, can be downloaded from the Internet. Then we came to the real issue: why had Enemalta (under Mr Tranter) issued an energy policy paper which stated that gas was the way forward, then seemed to for- get what it had stated and went for the BWSC plant run on heavy fuel oil? Mr Tranter’s reply showed the panic of the years 2008 to 2010 when oil prices spiked at $146 a barrel and later went down to $40. In those circumstances, he said, no for- ward policy was possible. All the country and its government wanted was to keep the price of oil in check. Hence the insistence on getting oil cheaper than the cheapest bid, from whoever, in which Totsa seemed to triumph. Whether one believes this or not is the actual crux of the matter. Mr Tranter’s boast that FPC under him did well in hedging and buying at cheaper than cheapest did not seem to cut any ice with PAC members who did not refer to it again. All the Opposition side could come up with was its attempt to include Tarcisio Mifsud in anything relating to the period before Mr Tranter. I wait to see what the future sessions hold in store. I cannot help but think that this PAC series mirrors and can only be understood in the light of the very different process being followed in the Court with regard to the corruption allegations. Many may think this has all been now rendered immaterial considering the deal with China, but I for one do not think so: it is important to find out what happened as it is equally important for any who are found guilty to pay for their guilt.
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