Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami on Monday demanded that the Home Affairs Minister explain what the police have done after Times of Malta revealed a potential €2 million bribery scandal involving the tender for the Marsa junction works.

Speaking in parliament, Fenech Adami also demanded a detailed explanation how a four-year-old girl on a migrants’ boat in Malta’s search and rescue zone was allowed to die of thirst because no one conducted a sea rescue for four days.

Fenech Adami said the minister was adopting the usual cliché that those who had evidence (about the Marsa road works claims) should go to the police. Yet, it should be the police who should be investigating.

"Had the authorities sent for the former chief of staff, or for the former prime minister to ask them if they knew anything? Did they know how the €40 million tender was awarded to one bidder and not the other?"

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Robert Abela, questioned by reporters outside parliament, said he had no knowledge of any investigation by EU authorities on the project, which was co-funded by the European Union. He said he had only learnt of the allegations from the newspaper. 

Pressed about whether due diligence had been carried out on the company that initially won the tender, Abela replied that the project is now an essential part of the country's infrastructure.

Loujin Ahmed Nasif, aged 4, died of thirst in Malta's rescue zone.

Earlier, Fenech Adami referred to the death of Syrian girl Loujin Ahmed Nasif, aged 4.

The girl was reportedly on a boat which left from Syria at the end of August and on September 2 the vessel was in Malta’s search and rescue zone when a distress call was made. The authorities were told that the situation on board was dire, but no action was taken for four days, by which time it was too late for the girl.

'Wrong to parade them like Guantanamo'

The Nationalist MP said he had nothing but praise for AFM soldiers who acted efficiently and bravely when they were ordered to conduct rescue operations.

But a detailed explanation was needed by those who took the political and administrative decision on when to conduct rescues in the waters Malta is responsible for.

“The minister must come clean on this incident,” he said.

"A young girl had died of thirst in Malta’s rescue zone while the Maltese were enjoying their summer. Why? How can anyone ignore a plea from someone who says people are dying of thirst?

“No one, no one should die of thirst, let alone a four-year-old girl,” he told the House.

Fenech Adami observed that some were trying to shift the blame, even blaming the girl's own mother.

"Which mother would not try to get her daughter out of the terror that was Syria?"

People smugglers were partly responsible, but whenever a call such as this was received, one should have the moral fibre to ignore populism and not let people die, he stressed.

While Malta was not open to irregular migration and needed to show it favours law and order, including international obligations, it ultimately also needs to also show it champions values which distinguished it from the extremists.

Fenech Adami also lashed out at the minister over the way people found to have been staying in Malta irregularly had been paraded while being deported.

It was right, he said, that people who had no right to stay in Malta were repatriated, but it was wrong to parade them like they were Guantanamo prisoners, all wearing the same T-shirts.

This, he said, was yet another disgusting example of populism.

“Let’s do things correctly, without resorting to populism which would ruin the country,” he said.