Montenegro MPs open inquiry into Enemalta wind farm deal

Montenegro’s parliament voted to form an Inquiry Committee to investigate the Mozura wind farm project, implicated in a deal involving Enemalta and Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech.

The Daphne Foundation revealed this in a statement on Friday, stating that the project has been "implicated in corruption allegations from the outset".

Branka Bošnjak, the Vice-President of the Assembly said the investigation is motivated by “the fact that this is a major international corruption scandal” and “there is very important evidence of multimillion-dollar corruption in the project, which will additionally cost the state 115 million euros through a subsidised electricity contract for 12 years”.

After yesterday’s vote in Montenegro for a parliamentary inquiry into the project, Bošnjak said, “the Government of Montenegro and other competent authorities did not take measures, actions and activities that according to the Constitution and the law were obliged to be undertaken in the protection of state property. On the contrary, it is suspected that they were part of this corrupt business.”

Enemalta had invested in a windfarm project in Montenegro in 2015, after buying the shares from Cifidex, a Seychelles-based company.

However, an investigation by Reuters and Times of Malta last year revealed how Fenech’s 17 Black profited from the windfarm deal through its business relationship with Cifidex.

Enemalta bought the shareholding at a much higher premium than what Cifidex paid to acquire the project from a Spanish firm. The Maltese police are investigating the case, which also cost former energy minister Konrad Mizzi his place in the Labour Party parliamentary group.

The deadline for conducting the inquiry is one hundred and twenty days from the day the Decision on the parliamentary inquiry enters into force.