Updated 7.45 pm with PL and Metsola statement
The Nationalist Party has called on the Attorney General to publish the concluded magisterial inquiry on 17 Black so that people can know "who stole millions from them".
The PN was reacting shortly after Times of Malta reported that an inquiry recommended that Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, Yorgen Fenech, and two others should all face criminal charges over their association with 17 Black, a secret offshore company owned by Yorgen Fenech.
"The magisterial inquiry report on the Electrogas power station must be published by the Attorney General without further delay so that the Maltese and Gozitan people can know who stole the millions," the PN said on Friday afternoon.
The Nationalist Party also called on Prime Minister Robert Abela to take action.
"Robert Abela has an obligation to immediately take all necessary steps to ensure that what was stolen from the Maltese and Gozitan people through this monument of corruption is returned to them without delay."
"If Robert Abela fails to take these steps, it will be the Nationalist Party, with the trust of the Maltese and Gozitan people, that will carry this out," the PN statement read.
They said the inquiry's conclusion is further evidence that Abela's government is "fraudulent", as people in the heart of his and Joseph Muscat's government will be charged.
"The Nationalist Party has said from the very beginning that the Electrogas power station is a monument to corruption," they said, adding that the Labour Party began the project to illicitly benefit senior people within the PL.
Those high officials in the Labour Party include Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, "who have stated they always followed Joseph Muscat's instructions", the PN said.
"These corrupt politicians teamed up with individuals involved in business and at the core of the Labour Party, including Yorgen Fenech, Paul Apap Bologna, and Mario Pullicino, to defraud the people in a contract worth approximately €450 million," the PN said.
PN leader Bernard Grech said the conclusions of the inquiry showed that the Electrogas power station was a monument to corruption.
"The clique defrauded the people with a €450 million contract... It is unacceptable for the people to pay money to the corrupt every time they switch on the light," he said.
Civil society NGO Repubblika warned the prime minister that it will resist any attempt to remove citizens' rights to call for a magisterial inquiry whenever wrongdoing is suspected.
In a statement Repubblika recalled that it was slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who first revealed the name of the secret company 17 Black.
The PN said the magisterial inquiry on 17 Black and the Panama Papers kicked off because of a PN initiative under the leadership of the former Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil, as well as on the initiative of MEP David Casa and the organisation Repubblika, with the assistance of Jason Azzopardi.
This happened after Daphne Caruana Galizia revealed the existence of 17 Black and the company's ties to the ex-government chief of staff Keith Schembri and former minister Konrad Mizzi.
Owen Bonnici, who was justice minister in 2018, had told parliament seven years ago that an inquiry regarding the secretive company was requested by the police some weeks before news of 17 Black broke.
The inquiry, concluded recently, centred around plans by Fenech’s company 17 Black to pay millions to Schembri and Mizzi via secretive offshore structures in Panama.
At the time of the plans, Fenech was leading Electrogas, the consortium that won a €450 million government contract to build and operate a new power station in Delimara.
Ex-Electrogas director Paul Apap Bologna, and Mario Pullicino, the local agent for the floating storage tanker fuelling the power station, will also be charged, sources said.
Both Apap Bologna and Pullicino held secretive offshore structures similar to 17 Black.
European Parliament president Roberta Metsola also released a short statement on X, saying "we have moved one step closer to a semblance of justice".
'Let institutions work freely' PL say
In a reaction to the PN statement the Labour Party said that insinuations that people currently involved in the PL or government are involved in the inquiry are untrue.
"Nowhere has this been stated except in the PN press statement," the party said in a statement.
The PL said it was taking note that the inquiry has concluded adding that "our institutions should be allowed to exercise their duties freely as should be".
Labour defended their energy policy saying Labour government decisions "led to a new generation of energy that is gas operated and clean, the lowest water and electricity prices - including during an international energy related crisis, cleaner air, and a guarantee of electricity provision for the country".
They said the PN is "nostalgic" to an old and dirty heavy fuel oil-run power station which polluted Malta and "harmed people's health and wreaked havoc on families and businesses' income due to exorbitant water and electricity rates".