Pardoned oil trader George Farrugia will have to answer questions by the Public Accounts Committee tomorrow after the Speaker ruled today that the Presidential pardon given to him also covered his testimony to Parliament.

The parliamentary committee is probing the shortcomings flagged by the Auditor General in his report on Enemalta’s oil procurement between 2008 and 2011.

Speaker Anglu Farrugia had been asked to rule by Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi, who is also chairman the PAC hearing on the oil procurement scandal, whether the pardon given to Mr Farrugia also covered his testimony in front of the PAC.

In his ruling this evening, Dr Farrugia said it did because although the PAC rules states that a witness could not be forced to answer questions that might incriminate him, given the pardon Mr Farrugia was given on condition that he said nothing but the truth, that rule did not apply.

To the contrary, he was bound to say the truth as indicated by the pardon he was given in February.

Although the PAC was not specifically mentioned in the pardon, constitutional jurisdiction should also apply to testimony given at the PAC, which was part of Parliament, the highest constitutional institution of the country.

The Speaker's ruling may be read in the pdf link below.

The PAC tonight also heard the testimony of former Enemalta CEO Karl Camilleri, called in for a second time.

Mr Camilleri created controversy the first time around when he admitted keeping his Enemalta laptop with company information on it. He claimed that then chairman William Spiteri Bailey gave him permission to keep the computer.

When testifying, Mr Spiteri Bailey said permission was granted on the understanding that the information would have been deleted.

However, yesterday Mr Camilleri clarified that his request to keep the laptop was based on an agreement that there had to be a handover period just before leaving.

"I had to have information on the laptop to give a proper handover and genuinely felt that I should keep it for posterity after I left," he said, adding that when the new Enemalta chairman requested the information he returned it willingly.

Mr Camilleri said he had documents and reports that he took from the safe in Enemalta to be used during the handover period.

"Maybe I was an altruist by keeping the information on my laptop after the handover period ended... I should have wiped it clean and cut loose my ties rather than keep it just in case Enemalta would need to ask me something."

Mr Camilleri denied that the departure payment he received of €5,000 was requested by him, saying that it was the Enemalta board that proposed the payment.

The testimony contrasted with that of chief financial officer Antoine Galea who had said Mr Camilleri had made the return of documents conditional on receiving the payment.

The PAC agreed to hold a confrontation between Mr Camilleri and Mr Galea at some stage.

Mr Camilleri also spoke about the fuel consignments that did not have sulphur content according to contractual specifications, insisting the decision to accept the delivery was to ensure continuation of supply.

But the former CEO said there were also instances when the oil supplier delivered fuel with a lower sulphur content than requested by Enemalta, which did not come at a higher cost.

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