The Nationalist Party this afternoon reiterated its call for the government to align local fuel prices with the international oil price and also launched a 'fuel robbery calculator'.

The calculator www.dieselupetrol.com - which calculates how much Maltese consumers are paying extra each time they fill their fuel tanks at petrol stations - was launched by Marthese Portelli, shadow minister for energy, who said the PN will be keeping up its pressure on the government to cut pump fuel prices immediately.

Access to the site on government computers was blocked by Mita, the government's IT agency which said it was doing so for security reasons, classifying it as spam.

But Mita said later there was no official blocking of the site but what happened was that the site was blocked by an automatic filtering system that had been in place for years.

The block has been lifted.

Speaking at a launch press conference, Dr Portelli said it was unacceptable that the government is robbing people every day.

While in the last six months the price of oil has tumbled by 55 per cent, the price of fuel in Malta were kept at very high levels, she complained.

All EU member states had slashed fuel prices drastically while in Malta the prime minister organised a press conference to lower the price by 2 cents, she said.

Justice Shadow Minister Jason Azzopardi said that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat should stick to his word and be transparent.

He called on the government to publish documents on fuel procurement and said the government should not await the local council elections to lower the price.

ENERGY MINISTRY REACTS

In a reaction, the Energy Ministry said petrol and diesel prices in Malta were in a consistent decline for as long as the current government took office.This was a government which believed in lower prices and stability in the energy sector.

Under the former government, it said, prices used to move every month. Between March 2008 and March 2013 the price of petrol rose by 39c a litre while diesel was up 36c. These prices were nine times more than the increases in the international oil price. The same happened for electricity.

This government had reduced petrol and diesel prices, as well as prices for electricity and water.  

The ministry said the oil procurement scandal - which it said was a political scandal - removed all credibility from the opposition.