The opposition will be forwarding its list of proposed witnesses for the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigation into the NAO's Electrogas report to the PL's committee members, and the PAC will next week discuss this list.

During the first session of the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday, it was generally agreed that the NAO's Electrogas report will be the first item on the agenda, however debate on how the committee will tackle it is still ongoing. The government MPs on the committee were pushing for timeframes in order for the committee not to take too long on the topic, given the amount of time that was used last legislature, while the PN MPs are saying that imposing a timeframe on a particular issue would not be good, instead offering to hold debates on two topics simultaneously.

The government MPs said they would prefer, given the Electrogas topic is technical, to have the committee focus on one topic rather than two, but aired concern over the way the PAC was handled last legislature, as it was criticised for wasting time on a number of occasions.  Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo suggested that the committee could meet more than once a week if the list ends up being too long.

PN MP David Agius recommended seeing how the committee would handle the first sittings and then discuss the way forward. It was ultimately decided that the list of proposed witnesses will be presented by the opposition, and this list and the way forward will then be discussed in the committee meeting that will be held on Tuesday, as no clear decision on this was taken.

At the beginning of the sitting it was decided that, unlike established practice, the testimony, documents and evidence gathered during the PAC sittings on this report last legislature will form part of the discussion this legislature.

The PL MPs also said that they were willing to allow the opposition to choose the first item that will be discussed by the committee - that being the Electrogas report, despite it being practice that the government MPs select the first item.