Former Enemalta chairman Charles Mangion said he was not aware of the financial struggles that Gasol had when he ratified the decision to award the Electrogas consortium the power station contract.

Mangion was testifying before the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament on Thursday.

Mangion said his role as Enemalta Chairman was just to ratify the decision to award the contract.

When the issue of Gasol's poor financial standing at the time was brought up, he said he was not aware of the financial troubles it had. He was also nor aware of Socar's willingness to mitigate the risk at the time.

Gasol was originally part of the Electrogas consortium, however exited the Maltese consortium in July 2015. Upon its exit, Gasol transferred its 3,000 shares - equivalent to a 30% stake in the total share capital of Electrogas - to the other consortium parties, namely Siemens Project Ventures, GEM Holdings and Socar Trading.

The National Audit Office, while looking Into the Electrogas contract, took note that the issues flagged with Gasol by the evaluation committee had been dismissed. But the committee had riled Electrogas admissible as Gasol was not deemed important to the commercial aspects of the bid. SOCAR had also provided a letter to cover Gasol's equity contribution.