Updated | Farrugia votes against energy, civil liberties, OPM, environment budgets

Parliament’s marathon voting session to approve the Budget with votes according to each ministerial budget has newly independent MP Marlene Farrugia swinging her vote between government and opposition.

The former Labour MP has on various votes intoned she will vote “wholeheartedly with the Labour government”, as she did on the tourism, transport, and social policy budgets – with votes 35-28, as some MPs are absent from the House.

Giovanna Debono, the other independent MP and former Nationalist MP, voted with the Opposition.

But Farrugia has voted against the budget for the energy ministry, which she has criticised for the lack of transparency it has shown on the LNG plant at Delimara, and secrecy with respect to various contracts with Shanghai Power Electric. She had the same to say for the environment ministry.

She also voted against the budgetary vote for the civil liberties ministry, citing her exception to what she said was the lack of condemnation from minister Helena Dalli to the comments made by Labour MP Joe Debono Grech against her.

The Budget debate was concluded on October 29, but voting was put off because the Budget needed to be given the go-ahead by the European Commission before it could be approved by the national parliament.