Updated | Austin Gatt has ‘no comment to make’ over Falzon’s denial

Former Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt has no comment to make after a former oil board chairman accused him of lying.

“As usual, I have no comment to make,” the former minister said, as soon as he answered the call.

Former chairman of the fuel procurement advisory committee Joseph Falzon has asked Austin Gatt to withdraw an accusation the latter made in his regard.

“I never recruited any graduates to assist the committee,” Falzon told the public accounts committee as it continued with its hearing of the Enemalta fuel procurement report.

During the electoral campaign, Gatt defended a 2005 decision to remove the chairman of the committee, saying he had breached recruitment procedures when he hired two graduates.

The former minister had argued that Falzon had engaged two graduates to assist the board but had not gone through the government’s recruitment procedures stipulated at law and which also bind Enemalta.

“Consequently, the recruitment was illegal,” Gatt said. “It was a difficult position, we had to part ways amicably.”

But according to Falzon, this was not the case.

“It’s true that I wanted two graduates to assist the board in order to collate data on price fluctuations and analysis. But I never engaged anyone, only made the request. I tried asking the minister [Gatt] but he had turned down my request,” he said.

Falzon explained how he tried meeting Gatt in 2005 at his ministry but to no avail. A messenger at the ministry advised Falzon, then chairman of the FPAC, to go meet Gatt at the PN club in Santa Venera.

“So I went to the club and waited in the queue. I was called in and Gatt asked me ‘how can I help you?’. I told him I need two graduates to help me out with the board but Gatt refused. ‘Resign if you don’t like it’, Gatt told me,” Falzon said.

Turning to the Nationalist MPs, Falzon said: “I ask Gatt to withdraw his statement. I didn’t recruit anyone and no I don’t know why he removed me.”

Falzon, a professor and dean of the Faculty of Economics, Management and Accountacy was the first Head of the Department of Banking and Finance at the University of Malta. In 1984 he obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

He was member of the Enemalta board between 1999 and 2003 and during those years he also served as member of the fuel procurement committee. Although he had always advocated the use of hedging in fuel procurement, his advice fell on deaf ears. The first time hedging took place at Enemalta was in 2005 after Falzon found the support of then Chief Financial Officer Pippo Pandolfino. Falzon was removed in 2003 by Gatt only to be brought again a couple of years later, presumably by Pandolfino.

In 2005 he was appointed chairman of the fuel procurement advisory committee by Gatt only to have him removed a few months later. He was replaced by Roderick Chalmers who, according to Falzon, was against hedging as well.

During his earlier years at Enemalta, Falzon unsuccessfully tried to convince Enemalta and the minister to go for hedging.

“I had two undergraduates with me and in nine months we made a study that showed how – with perfect foresight – Enemalta would have saved $111 million in two years,” Falzon said.