Updated 8.02am with PN statement
The Opposition will be calling for Konrad Mizzi to continue being grilled by MPs over the controversial power station deal.
Nationalist Party sources told Times of Malta that the PN’s parliamentary group had on Tuesday evening agreed to call for the controversial former minister to be brought in to continue facing MPs’ questions.
That was later confirmed in an official statement issued by the party on Wednesday morning.
Opposition members of the PAC would be asking for the committee probe to continue "at the first opportunity", the PN said.
The PN representatives on the committee are Darren Carabott, who also serves as PAC chair, David Agius and Graham Bencini.
In the last legislature, Mizzi was repeatedly quizzed by parliament’s Public Accounts Committee as part of its probe into the Electrogas power station deal.
Mizzi had spearheaded the deal during his time as energy minister.
When asked last month whether the PN intended to continue pursuing the matter in the PAC, party leader Bernard Grech had replied "we have no problem to continue asking questions, where necessary."
Ball in government's court
The ball is now in the government’s court as traditionally it is the government members of the committee that select the first topic of discussion once a new legislature is formed.
Questions sent on Monday about whether the government will be pressing for a new topic of discussion have not yet elicited a response.
Before the March general election, multiple PAC sessions had seen Mizzi and the Opposition members Beppe Fenech Adami, Karol Aquilina, and Ryan Callus, trade insults and slurs in heated exchanges.
Mizzi had repeatedly refused to answer questions, including about his relationship with individuals involved in the deal.
Instead, he said that he was only obliged to respond to questions directly related to the NAO report that the parliamentary committee is probing.
He has been testifying before the PAC since last November, having first refused to attend the sittings before then taking up several hearings to deliver a protracted "opening statement".
Mizzi’s grilling came to a premature end when he informed the parliamentary committee he was unavailable due to a medical condition.
Mizzi was admitted to hospital in November with a fever and peritonitis, the swelling of the tissue that lines the abdomen.
The Opposition PAC members for this legislature are Darren Carabott, David Agius, and Graham Bencini, while the government members are Clayton Bartolo, Glenn Bedingfield, Andy Ellul, and Alex Muscat.