The Malta Employers' Association has unexpectedly entered the debate over the controversial extension of the Delimara power station, urging the political class to make sure the right decisions were being taken.
The MEA said it would not enter into the merits of whether the extension was right, as it was not a technical body, "yet, experience has taught us that the local adjudication process does not always result in the best of all possible decisions".
The fact that the Marsa power station was still operating in the midst of the most densely populated area, after the new power station was built in pristine countryside at Delimara, was a working monument to why one could have reason to question the decisions taken by Enemalta, the MEA said.
The comments come as the Labour Party and the government trade broadsides over the tender for the extension.
Labour has alleged corruption in the way the €200 million contract for a new power plant was awarded to Scandinavian contractor BWSC for technology the party says is, in part, experimental.
The government has been challenging Labour to say who was bribed from the 24 people involved in the adjudication of the contract.
Questioned about this, a Labour spokesman said references to top people in local politics and others who were considered crucial to secure the contract to build were made in a series of e-mail exchanges between BWSC and its local middleman Joseph Mizzi. "At one stage Mr Mizzi also suggested that 'another source high up in the political hierarchy' should be tapped," the PL spokesman said.
But the PL does not have the names and said the government should ask BWSC and Mr Mizzi for them rather than defending the Scandinavian company and the middleman, the spokesman said.
The whole matter is now the subject of an investigation by the Auditor General.
The MEA did not go into the controversy but urged the political class to seek advice and assure taxpayers that, whatever the decision taken, it was truly the right choice for the country.
Commenting ahead of the international climate change conference in Copenhagen next week, the MEA said it strongly believed that the Maltese government should do all it could to ensure that the needed political agreement was achieved. Failure was not an option.
It said it was raising its concerns not because Malta's failure to reach the EU's carbon targets would lead to severe penalties but because it believed that, as a developed nation, Malta should actively participate in the European vision on climate change.