Independent MP Konrad Mizzi appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee for a second time over the Electrogas project, as heated exchanges between the former government minister and PN MPs took place.

Mizzi used the session held on Wednesday to continue delivering his ‘oral presentation’, the second session he has thus far taken for this. By the end of the session, he still had not finished meaning that MPs have not really started to question him.

This session started off calmer than the session held last week, although it later turned into a shouting match.

Among other things, PN MP Karol Aquilina called Mizzi the ‘queen of corruption’ whereas Mizzi sarcastically called Karol Aquilina the ‘champion of rule of law’, accusing Aquilina of believing in rule of law ‘a la carte’. Mizzi said that the police who had to testify in Karol Aquilina’s dangerous driving case did not, to which Aquilina said they did. Aquilina had been cleared of the allegations in court.

Another back and forth saw Mizzi spar with PN MP Ryan Callus. Callus sarcastically said that he is sure many are telling Mizzi ‘good job’ for what he has done. Mizzi retorted that the electorate told “you and your colleagues” good job in two elections.

Mizzi’s Panama company was also brought up a number of times.

The session got so heated at one point that chairman Beppe Fenech Adami had to call a five minute break.

During his presentation, Mizzi delved into the technical details of the project and continued to defend the project and the contracts surrounding it.

While explaining the technicalities of the project, Mizzi spoke about the level of debt Enemalta had at the time, adding that the company did not have the financial capital to undertake this project itself. “Enemalta had a junk rating at the time, it was impossible for it to go to a bank and ask for funds to undertake this project itself,” Mizzi said.

He also said that at the time Enemalta had no experience with LNG, adding that it did not know how to buy LNG, how to store it, process it, or transform it from liquid to gas etc.

 “The commercial risk on gas provision is large, but it is easy to actually run the stations,” he said, “so one project made sense for a blended risk situation,” he said, explaining why the government had not divided the project.

He said that through the contracts, the majority of risk was absorbed by Electrogas. “If there was a problem with the plant, Electrogas would pay for it,” he said.

Mizzi also defended the decision for the government to go for a floating storage unit, rather than land-based storage, saying that when the country decides to go for a gas pipeline, the ship could just move away. He also said it was safer.

Mizzi spoke about the temporary bank guarantee, which he emphasised was temporary. He defended that decision, saying that it was only in place until the EU approved the security of supply agreement.

 

Another back and forth saw PN MPs asking Mizzi why the PL kicked him out if he was doing so well, to which the committee devolved into arguments which included MPs from both parties and Mizzi.