Government MPs and ministers should have condemned the way a secret deal between Electrogas and the government had been kept hidden for years, the Opposition said on Saturday.  

Addressing a press conference, Nationalist MPs Mark Anthony Sammut and Darren Carabott both said it was telling that some two weeks after the major energy deal had been exposed, none of the government’s parliamentarians had spoken up.  

They were referring to an LNG security of supply agreement signed by former minister Konrad Mizzi in 2015 that effectively provided a blanket guarantee to Azeri energy firm SOCAR.

The Mizzi-led deal assured the energy provides - which also owns a stake in the Electrogas consortium - that Maltese taxpayers would carry the can if Electrogas could not afford to pay its dues. 

That security of supply agreement was never published and allegedly not shared with the European Commission, despite concerns that it could breach state aid rules.  

A copy of the agreement was obtained by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation and published by The Shift News earlier this month, following a long fought-out freedom of information battle. 

Sammut accused the government of having lied to the public and deliberately concealing important facts.  

Agreements that the government said had been discussed with European Commission, had in fact been kept hidden from Brussels, he said. 

Meanwhile, Carabott said the government is being reckless with taxpayer funds. 

”Today we are still talking about a scandal that began nine years ago,” he said, adding that the country cannot move forward until this is resolved. 

He asked why this deal was kept hidden. Why did the government use the public’s money to act as a guarantor? 

Why were tendering rules broken, and why was the European Commission not given the full picture? 

He said the PN would continue doing its work, including through parliament’s Public Accounts Committee which is scrutinising the entire energy deal.