Labour leader Joseph Muscat this afternoon accused the Prime Minister of misleading or being uninformed on the case of the damaged turbine at the Delimara BWSC extension.

Addressing a press conference, Dr Muscat showed three audiovisual clips contrasting the comments made by Lawrence Gonzi on Sunday and Finance Minister Tonio Fenech on two separate occasions, including yesterday in Parliament.

While Dr Gonzi said that BWSC had already accepted full responsibility for the damages that the country would face due to this 'fiasco', Mr Fenech said that the cost of the damages was still being evaluated and this was expected to be contested by BWSC in court.

This, Dr Muscat said, showed that the government did not have a plan, was not credible and the Prime Minister was either intentionally misleading the country or was not being property informed.

He said BWSC would face a fine of €1.6 million every week starting on November 7 if the turbine was not fixed in time. This was capped at €24 million, at which point the government had the option of asking for a full refund.

So far, the government has said that the damage was likely to take three to six months to be fixed but the turbine had not yet arrived at its manufacturer so there was the possibility that this would take even longer.

However, if this took 20 weeks, which is five months, the fine would have already gone up to €32 million.

There were also other expenses that had not yet been calculated, such as on how this would affect Malta in terms of its emissions targets.

Meanwhile, the government had paid BWSC and those who had to receive commissions and only owed an additional €8 million.

This case, Dr Muscat said, strengthened the opposition's arguments on the St Philip's Hospital's contract and the need for it to be scrutinised appropriately before being signed.