PN denounces Nexia BT involvement in LNG power station procurement

The Nationalist Party has called on the government to explain any links between Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi’s secret Panama companies and the new gas power station.

In a statement on Tuesday, the opposition said that a news article in The Times – which revealed that the government had appointed a subsidiary of Nexia BT to advise it in relation to the LNG power plant procurement – was “very grave”.

The PN said it was unacceptable that Nexia BT were, at the same time, consultants to the office of the prime minister, consultants to Enemalta, an auditor of the private consortium building the power station and the body opening secret companies for senior government officials.

“This was asking for trouble and stinks of corruption,” it said.

The party noted that Schembri, the PM’s chief of staff, and Mizzi, minister without portfolio within the OPM, were the major proponents and backers of the power station development, and had – together with prime minister Joseph Muscat – promised the building of the power station before the election.

The party said that Mr Schembri, the PM’s chief of staff, and Minister without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi were the minds behind the power station and were the two persons who, together with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, had promised the power station before the election.

Responding to the opposition’s statement, the Labour Party said the links between Nexia BT and the other parties were merely a figment of PN leader Simon Busuttil’s imagination.

Busuttil concocted such theories because he had yet to understand the big and positive changes the government was introducing in the energy sector, the PL statement said.

“Simon Busuttil insists our country does not need a new power station and he therefore wants Malta to continue using harmful oil,” it said. “He cannot acknowledge the fact that our country will do away with the Marsa powerstation, demolish the Delimara chimney and have 90% less dust in the air.”

The PL said Busuttil had always claimed that water and electricty bills would rise under a Labour government and he therefore could not accept that this government in fact managed to reduce the bills.

“Simon Busuttil remains a politically broken leader playing a broken record,” the PL said.