Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt would not say whether he would resign if a mistake is found in the way water and electricity tariffs were worked out.
The call for his resignation was made by the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin's general secretary, Gejtu Vella who last week said Dr Gatt should step down if an audit report detailing the way the water and electricity tariffs were worked out was found to be misleading.
Asked by The Times whether he would tender his resignation in this scenario, the minister said through a spokesman that nothing in what the Malta Resources Authority or any of its consultants have said has in any way suggested that anything about the tariffs was improper.
He added that the report by audit firm Deloitte published on January 6 confirmed this. "I have nothing else to add," he said.
Mr Vella had described the water and electricity tariffs as "a whole mess mastered by Austin Gatt", adding that the process of social dialogue had failed and the issue was completely mishandled.
The UĦM, which had come out in favour of the final package, had taken a back seat in the battle against the tariffs as 11 other unions fought against the new rates.
Yesterday, the General Workers' Union's general secretary, Tony Zarb said that the fact that the regulator had told the unions in a meeting that it would revise the tariffs retroactively showed that things were done improperly. The regulator has denied he agreed in the meeting to revise the tariffs retroactively.
Representatives of the 11 unions will be making a sworn statement in court tomorrow about the meeting's outcome.
Teachers' union president John Bencini said that whatever statement Dr Gatt makes on tariffs is no longer credible. He said the 11 unions had "serious suspicions" about why Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had refused to meet them and instead sent them to the regulator for the clarifications they had sought. He would not elaborate.
"There is a lot of uncertainty in the country and it is now the politicians' responsibility to stem it."