Labour MPs blocked a parliament spending watchdog from demanding further details from Enemalta about a decision to take the LNG tanker out of action during Storm Helious.
The four government members on the public accounts committee voted down questions relating to the storm mooring of the tanker that stores and supplies the Electrogas power plant on Tuesday.
Thursday and Friday’s powerful storm saw the Electrogas power plant effectively grind to a halt as the tanker supplying it with LNG had to be pulled away from its jetty for safety reasons.
PN's three members proposed a set of questions to confirm this and find out which alternatives were used instead. But the four PL members opposed, effectively blocking the questions.
“You are using the committee as a political platform,” tourism minister Clayton Bartolo charged.
The committee is meant to discuss reports from the Auditor General. It is not a political arena, parliamentary secretary for social dialogue Andy Ellul added.
However, PN MP David Agius insisted that it was well within the remit of the PAC to ask the questions.
I exercise my right to silence - Cini
Nexia BT director Karl Cini again stonewalled questions reciting the phrase “I exercise my right to silence,” in reply to every question committee chairman Darren Carabott asked.
Carabott was asking Cini about Nexia BT's involvement in the Electrogas power station deal.
Two weeks ago Cini had similarly refused to answer any question put to him by the committee citing his "right to silence”.
A ruling from Speaker Anġlu Farrugia followed. It said that witnesses appearing before PAC cannot invoke their right to silence at their whims but only if the questions are incriminating.
Cini's lawyer Stephen Tonna Lowell said that Cini is accused of money laundering spanning between 2005 and 2019. “The prosecution does not specify any particular case,” Lowell said.
This means any answers could be used as evidence against him, he said.
PAC chairman Carabott said he will again seek a ruling from the Speaker.