Updated | MPs to summon Trafigura oil trader in hearings on Enemalta fuel procurement

Prominent members of the previous administration, amongst them Lawrence Gonzi, are expected to appear before a parliamentary committee that will scrutinise the National Audit Office's review of Enemalta's fuel procurement policy between 2008 and mid-2011.

EXPLAINER | Auditor General's report on Enemalta fuel procurement

Less than a week after Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil called on the government to debate the report within the Public Accounts Committee, both sides presented an ambitious list of over 60 witnesses.

While the Auditor General's scathing report focuses on post-2008 fuel procurement, it also sheds light on how little had improved at Enemalta since 2004 until 2011, when reforms started to be implemented in the state energy corporation.

Featuring on the witness list is oil trader George Farrugia, the agent for Dutch commodities firm Trafigura - the company which MaltaToday showed to have paid kickbacks to key Enemalta officials for the supply of oil to the corporation. The revelations led to charges of corruption against former Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone, his former aide, Frank Sammut, and businessmen Francis Portelli and Anthony Cassar.

Apart from Gonzi and Farrugia, the PAC will summon former minister Austin Gatt - responsible for Enemalta prior to 2010 - and former Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone, as well as Mediatoday's managing editor, Saviour Balzan.

The extensive list of over 16 witnesses presented by the Opposition omitted to include Tancred Tabone, George Farrugia and Frank Sammut as witnesses. Lawrence Gonzi was added in a handwritten scribble, in what appeared to be an afterthought.

More thorough was the list of 50 witnesses supplied by the government side, which wants all former chairpersons, fuel procurement committee members, secretaries, personal assistants, audit firms, oil traders and key Enemalta personnel to testify before the PAC.

Chairing the PAC will be Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi, in lieu of standing Chairman Tonio Fenech, who as former finance minister (with responsibility for Enemalta after 2010) will be summoned as a witness. Fenech was accused of receiving an undeclared gift from oil trader George Farrugia.

The list of witnesses as presented by the government also includes Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi, Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil, former police commissioner John Rizzo, former Nationalist MPs Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Jesmond Mugliett and traders for various oil companies.

The Opposition's list of 16 witnesses includes Enemalta chairman Louis Giordimaina, members of the Risk Management and Hedging Committee who served between 2008 and 2011 and individuals who served as consultants to Enemalta on oil procurement between 2008 and 2013.

Not two minutes had gone by in the PAC meeting before it met its first stumbling block: both Jason Azzopardi and Parliamentary Secretary for Justice Owen Bonnici agreed the meetings should be open to the media, and a debate ensued on whether cameras should be allowed to film the whole proceedings.

It was later agreed that, provided the meetings were streamed online, there was no need for camerapersons to film them entirely but just a few minutes of each interview.

The second issue arose on the actual role of the PAC: Nationalist MP Claudio Grech - who will step down from the committee as he forms part of the government's witness list - argued the committee's role was not to investigate but to "debate the findings of the report".

Opposition Whip David Agius insisted that the committee had been asked to examine the report and not hold an inquiry.

Disagreeing, Bonnici argued the committee's role was to "inquire".

"We are an inquiring body and that is why we have the power to bring in witnesses for questioning," he said.

The third stumbling block was the frequency of meetings and how the schedule should be planned. The Opposition's first proposal was to have all witnesses interviewed within three days from 9:30am to 1pm and from 4pm to 7pm - a request which was immediately shot down by the government side.

Grech had insisted the PAC meetings should not be taken all up by the fuel procurement report. "There are also other issues this committee needs to discuss," he said.

Conceding the committee had other issues to discuss, Bonnici however warned that constraining all the hearings into three sittings would not allow the committee to do its work in analysing the voluminous report.

"We have to give witnesses their own time to prepare themselves, and we have to have enough time to analyse what our witnesses say," he said.

It was eventually agreed that the PAC was to meet on Monday, 26 August with the Auditor General. From then on, the committee would sort out the frequency of meetings and the number of witnesses to be called in at each sitting.

In an intervention, Auditor General Anthony C. Mifsud expressed his opposition to having members of his office asked to appear before the PAC.

"Interrogating my staff will undermine our office's independence. I, as the auditor general, take full responsibility for the report and any questions should be directed to me. But the NAO's staff should not be exposed," Mifsud said.

Mifsud insisted that exposing NAO workers would tarnish the NAO's autonomy. He added that all the NAO had to say was written in its report.

Eventually, the PAC agreed the auditor general should be the only one to reply to the questions and that he should not be treated as a witness. The same would apply for the deputy auditor general.

The committee reserved the right to summon NAO staff if was deemed necessary.

Adding to the following list as presented by the government, the Opposition has also included Director of Contracts Frans Attard, the finance ministry's permanent secretary Alfred Camilleri, Antoine Galea, Louis Giordimaina, Godwin Grima, David Spiteri Gingell, members of the Risk Management and Hedging Committee between 2008 and 2011 and consultants to Enemalta on oil procurement between 2008 and 2013.