Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt said yesterday he now “supports” the decision to summon witnesses over the power station tender controversy, despite seemingly having been overruled by the Prime Minister.
On Sunday, Lawrence Gonzi made a surprise announcement saying that the government would draw up a list of witnesses to be questioned by the Public Accounts Committee to explain why they did not cooperate fully with the Auditor General.
The decision was described by the Labour Party as U-turn because Dr Gatt had vehemently opposed bringing witnesses to the PAC, arguing this would undermine the investigation carried out by the Auditor General.
But when contacted yesterday Dr Gatt said: “I was indeed involved in the government’s decision (to call witnesses) which I support. I stand by what I said about Labour’s intentions for the PAC and I will continue to insist that Labour is not given a free hand to conduct a public lynching under cover of Parliament.”
Just a month ago, Dr Gatt had argued that the witnesses would not be able to be protected as in a court of law and the PAC did not have investigative powers.
In an interview with The Sunday Times a month ago he said: “The Labour Party wants to put on a show for the media... It is not right to give licence to parliamentarians to do what the hell they like because they’re sitting in that chair. It’s not right for democracy and it’s not right to hang someone publicly – even if it means I will end up looking bad in the media.”
However, he had not totally ruled out summoning witnesses at a later stage, stressing that the Auditor General should be questioned first.
On Sunday, the Prime Minister laid stress on the need for the PAC to retain its function, which was to scrutinise public accounts to ensure value for money and not act as a court. Today, the Committee of Parliamentary Procedure will be asked to start drawing up the rules of engagement to ensure fairness during the questioning stage. The government is also expected to present its list of witnesses.
The Labour Party has said it expects to be free to add to the list of witnesses to be summoned and not to be blocked by Dr Gatt as happened only some weeks ago.
The Public Accounts Committee is holding an inquiry about the awarding of a power station extension tender to Danish company BWSC. Over the past year, Labour has made serious allegations of corruption about how the tender was awarded.
The Auditor General’s inquiry found no evidence of corruption but pointed out that some key witnesses were not cooperative.