Updated | PAC sitting postponed as Zammit Lewis moves to raise point of order

Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said the government was asking the Speaker to investigate the procedural manner by which the PAC this evening had been conducted and to investigate how a correspondence between the PAC members had been “leaked” to the media, MaltaToday included.

Fenech went on to accuse the government of rendering the PAC a puppet in its hands, “repeatedly make us of its majority vote”.

A heated exchange ensued between Zammit Lewis and Fenech as the tourism minister objected to Fenech’s explanation of what went on in the meeting. The two then turned on the Speaker asking him to follow a recording of the meeting, to which the Speaker nodded in approval.

Fenech added that the PAC shouldn’t be reduced to “an instrumental tool in government’s hands” which he added was “scandalous”. The former finance minister said he followed the procedure to the letter, having “learnt” from past mistakes.

“With no shame, the government is telling the NAO how to interpret the law. The Auditor General himself had limited the terms of reference; and the NAO is not asking for PAC’s direction. The NAO is not answerable to the Public Accounts Committee.

“It is shameful that the government repeatedly uses its majority to try and influence the NAO’s work,” Fenech said.

Zammit Lewis said the government had expressed reserves over the terms of reference but the PAC chairman, Tonio Fenech, had “refused to listen to the government’s reasoning”. He added that “no one will rollover me or the government.

He added that he had wanted to ask the Speaker whether the reservations expressed by the government were legitimate or not “but I was rudely interrupted by the chairman who shut off the meeting”.

In the House of Representatives, Zammit Lewis went on to provide the Speaker with a copy of the terms of reference which the Opposition had given to the Auditor General. One of the terms of reference asks the NAO to investigate whether the contract between the government and the GWU had been breached. According to Zammit Lewis, while he had no opposition to the NAO investigating the contracts, it was unheard of to ask the National Audiot Office to determine a civil right.

“Even worse is asking the NAO to see whether other leases by the GWU to third parties were in breach of the contract. My objection is that this is something that should be decided by the courts and not the NAO,” he said.

Zammit Lewis went on to lament that correspondence between MPs from both sides had ended up in the media.