Farrugia presents amendment calling for no confidence in Mizzi

The former Labour MP Marlene Farrugia, laid into the administration during her address to the House in a motion of no confidence, demanding that the government “sweeps itself clean” and calling for the resignation of energy minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff – the man she quipped as Keith ‘scandals’ Schembri.

Farrugia will present an amendment to the motion of no confidence by the Opposition, asking that the House votes on a motion of no confidence in energy minister Konrad Mizzi.

“Opening a company in Panama is enough for the Prime Minister to request the resignation of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. But if nothing happened so far, then it is easy to surmise that there is something worse afoot.

“I’d want to hope that, once Labour sweeps itself clean, the battlecry of ‘Malta Taghna Lkoll’ will mean something once it is told once again to the electorate. That it would have been a meritocratic and transparent ‘Malta Taghna Lkoll’.”

Farrugia set much store by her recollection of the years in the run-up to the 2013 election, during which she described an honest campaign that turned sour once the MPs elected by the people “decided to take absolute power”.

“We had a manifesto that was truly sincere,” Farrugia remarked of the ‘Malta Taghna Lkoll’ programme, before ruing the way the Labour government had overturned the basic pledges of transparency and meritocracy once it was in power.

“I could speak of this administration’s positive accomplishments, but these are now imperiled by those who in power feel they can dupe the people,” she said, speaking of an internal conflict voters have at seeing the way Labour comport itself in power.

“We have to view Panamagate from a wider perspective. While we as MPs were elected to represent the people, I was not part of that closed group inside Labour that was already taking decisions about what it would on energy, and I was shadowing the utilities sector.”

Farrugia said that the Labour Party had “lied” to Enemalta employees when it told them, at the Rialto theatre meeting in Bormla, that they would not lose their jobs or that the energy corporation would not be privatized.

“What a betrayal of the workers. Where is the General Workers Union? What has happened to those workers’ representatives today? Employees today are scared of speaking out, because that’s what the Labour Party has done to the working class today...”

Farrugia also paid tribute to the former administration, at least by way of saying that the Maltese economy kept its head above the water during the financial crisis, in part because of austerity measures it employed.

“And we all criticised the government for it. Back then oil was over $140 a barrel… and from those days of austerity, the Labour government found an administration wanting where it came to governance, and a fund of €1 billion in EU funds. Let’s be realistic: this government built on the strong foundations it found when it assumed power… and now we have a minister who doesn’t even put his trust in his own country’s reputable financial services industry but that of Panama. A blow to the 9,000 jobs built over 20 years for this industry.”

Farrugia said Mizzi had brought about a great burden on Malta and Labour, asking people how fuel and energy prices had not been reduced further now that the international price of oil had fell.

She took him to task for not publishing contracts on deals he had presided over as energy and health minister. “So many unknowns took place – a power station commissioned to a foreign consortium that even needed a bank guarantee from Bank of Valletta – which begs the question: is he [Konrad Mizzi] serving us the people, or not?”

Farrugia also delved into the American University of Malta debacle, pointing out how the Labour administration simply picked an investor to regale him with an enormous piece of land. “This 90,000 square metre gift was reduced to 20,000 square metres. But it also behooves us to ask why, if the Institute for Tourism Studies is being moved to Smart City, wasn’t AUM also provided the same space at Smart City?

“How can we not doubt the intentions of people, who give an investor this kind of space for a private university when they left Castille without even having a licence for a university? It’s funny then, that Mizzi and Schembri were denied bank accounts by seven international banks because they were ‘high-risk’, but we gifted that kind of land just like that…”

Farrugia said that it pained her to think that she had believed in the dream that Labour could have delivered politics that is transparent, meritocratic, that gave equal opportunity to people, “to see the damage this government is wreaking on workers and students.”