The Permanent Commission Against Corruption has found no evidence of corruption or bribery in the BWSC contract, Times of Malta reports.

The €200 million contract to extend the Delimara power station had already been investigated by the National Audit Office, which had found no evidence of corruption. Those conclusions have now been upheld by the anti-corruption commission, which presented its report to Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis last month.

An investigation had been launched in 2010 after GWU newspaper l-Orizzont had claimed that there was corruption in the contract, which was awarded under a Nationalist administration.

The probe had stopped for a time because the PCAC had been reconstituted. Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee had, in the meantime, asked the NAO to investigate.

The Auditor General had found no hard and conclusive evidence of corruption in the tender procedure, but had complained of a lack of cooperation by some stakeholders.

He had also found various administrative shortcomings, particularly by Enemalta and the Department of Contracts. These were mostly related to a lack of experience in the procurement process or insufficient coordination.

The commission, which said it investigated the claims from a legal perspective, also said it has found no evidence that money had been exchanged, as had been alleged, or that this involved any public officer or a politician.

The commission said that there is a big difference between alleging wrongdoings in the way the contract was awarded to claiming that there was corruption.

Times of Malta reports that the commission heard how the allegations of corruption revolved around an e-mail in which someone at Enemalta said that the matter needed to go further up the political hierarchy.

It concluded that the person who sent the e-mail could have been bluffing as there was no evidence that back it up.