Prime Minister Robert Abela “lied” to the people on the Montenegro scandal as he had been aware of this “corrupt deal” since November, the Opposition leader said on Monday.
Adrian Delia levelled this accusation in parliament during the debate on the financial estimates of the Water Services Corporation.
On Friday Times of Malta and Reuters revealed that Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech had secretly made a €4.6 million profit via his secret company 17 Black through the acquisition of a windfarm in Montenegro by State energy company Enemalta in 2015.
It transpires that Enemalta paid €10.3 million to buy the shares in the wind farm venture from a company called Cifidex which the latter had acquired for a third of this price just a fortnight before. The transaction happened at the same time when in an e-mail sent by government advisors Nexia BT mentioned that 17 Black would be depositing up to €2 million into offshore structures set up by the then Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri.
In his first reaction to this scandal, Prime Minister Robert Abela expressed himself “disgusted” while calling on the police to investigate.
On Monday, Delia took the prime minister to task after it transpired that members of Cabinet had already been aware of this deal in a briefing by lead investigators in the Caruana Galizia. At the time, when Abela was the prime minister’s legal advisor, Cabinet was told that Fenech wanted to spill the beans on this deal.
In his address, Delia said the Prime Minister’s lies were fully exposed when the police on Saturday confirmed that they had already been investigating the case.
“When addressing the people the prime minister last week lied with a straight face as he had been fully aware of all this,” Delia said.
“Rather than inviting people having information to come forward he should have gone himself to the police to brief them on what he had come across already,” he added.
The Opposition leader also pitched his address at Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo saying he could no longer limit himself to sound warnings about Malta’s reputation on Facebook.
“Now it is time for decisions. Government MPs must choose whether to defend Malta or criminals, workers or those who robbed them,” he remarked.
Delia reiterated his criticism levelled that the prime minister was “being held hostage” by the clan close to former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
“We cannot go on having a prime minister unable to take decision and having MPs [Mizzi and Muscat] who robbed this country,” the Opposition leader said.
Delia said that the change in leadership which happened last January resulted in the inversion of roles with Muscat becoming Abela’s advisor.
Why has no police commissioner investigated me?
Earlier during question time, Delia cast doubts on the veracity of allegations levelled against him most recently by Keith Schembri saying he could not understand why no police commissioner had ever launched an investigation into them.
The Nationalist leader made the point in the wake of the testimony given earlier by Schembri in the compilation of evidence against Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech.
According to Schembri, Delia had asked the murder suspect for €50,000 to be used to mount a campaign to hinder David Casa’s re-election in the 2019 MEP election. In a terse statement, the Nationalist Party denied such claim.
Apart from this allegations, there had been claims by Daphne Caruana Galizia that prior to his venture in politics Delia had been involved in a prostitution racket in Soho.
During Monday’s parliamentary sitting Minister Carmelo Abela, who served as home affairs minister between 2014 and 2017, took a dig at Delia saying the police investigated everything not just the Montenegro deal.
Irked by this remark Delia interjected saying he was yet to understand the reason why none of the commissioners appointed by the Labour government had not investigated him, if it was true they had some shred of evidence against him.