Leader of the Opposition Joseph Muscat yesterday asked the Prime Minister to declare whether he personally, or any member of his staff, had received information that persons involved the adjudication process of the dockyard privatisation had demanded money.

Speaking during the debate on the transfer of the dockyard to Palumbo Spa, Dr Muscat said that he was being prudent in asking and would give Dr Gonzi the benefit of time to answer him.

He also asked Minister of Finance Tonio Fenech to inform the House whether former Dockyard CEO Chris Bell had any role in the privatisation process. He asked whether Mr Bell was present for meetings held by MIMCOL and whether there were any formal or informal contacts with him. If this was the case, what was Chris Bell paid for his services?

Dr Muscat said these were very serious matters and Parliament could not be used as a rubber stamp. This was not a political issue but one of good governance as befitted any EU-member-state.

He added that he had made proposals on curbing corruption not only because of the Delimara power station extension case but also because of this issue. Corruption was paid by the people's taxes.

Dr Muscat also criticised the government for excluding crucial information about Palumbo Spa from the due diligence report without even trying to justify this. This showed the extent of the government's arrogance. The report excluded the memorandum and articles of association of the Italian company, reference to its background and standing and also the submissions made by the company itself.

Was the government also waiting for Palumbo's permission to publish this information?

To add insult to injury, said Dr Muscat, the government only tabled this diligence report two hours before the debate started last week. The government also tabled the dockyard's audited accounts for its last three years during the same sitting when it had refused to give this information to the opposition for months.

Dr Muscat said the contract for the dockyard was different from that about the transfer of the Manuel Island Yacht Yard because it left the door open for Palumbo to use the land in Cospicua for other purposes than maritime if the government granted permission. He said that this could lead to a scenario where Palumbo sub-leased the land to third parties for a different use, netting more money than the lease it had to pay the government.

The opposition could never approve such a situation when the government was to get the meagre sum of €53 million for a 30-year lease to Palumbo. The amount was ridiculous and continued to show how deceitful the government was when, before the elections the PN had promised dockyard workers more profit, more work and less taxes when it had already decided to privatise the company.

Dr Muscat said that the dockyard had lost vast amounts of money during the last 25 years when the PN was in government. However, the governmnent failed to take responsibility for this debt.

The government had put the dockyard as an asset on the market after it had undermined the company as a strategic asset for years. The government had constantly accused the dockyard workers of being lazy, but later Professor Peter Serracino Inglott, among others, had declared that the workers' skills were being lost.

The dockyard had made heavy losses through the Fairmount contracts when, at the outset, the government had boasted that these would turn the dockyard's fortunes. In its terms of reference, the government did not allow Pricewaterhouse Coopers to embark on a fully-fledged investigation. The auditing company found that not all files and documents related to the case were forwarded.

The government had known about the Fairmount fiasco because it had even authorised a four-million-liri guarantee. MIMCOL was not even mentioned in the report and the deal was left in the hands of a few people. People in managerial positions were left out of the whole process.

The government had appointed Graham Crozier to negotiate the Fairmount contract. He had changed the prices and the terms of the contract more than once. There were e-mails and faxes which showed how decisions were taken. The contract also included penalties the dockyard had to pay if it failed to deliver the two buoys on time but let the client change the designs, which he did 750 times.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers had said that the contract was one-sided in favour of the client.

All this resulted in a loss of €40 million.

Dr Muscat said that this contract was very similar to that concluded with the BWSC and asked who was to be held politically accountable for this irresponsibility.

This was also relevant to the suspension of seven- million-euros in EU funds on Lifelong Learning programmes. Maltese youth could not benefit from these funds for a whole year because of mismanagement of a government agency. While the Minister had showed her disappointment for this, no one had accepted administrative and political responsibility.

Concluding, Dr Muscat said this was another proof that accountability was an alien culture for the nationalist government.

During yesterday's sitting, the Prime Minister told Owen Bonnici (PL) that it was clear from the outset that Palumbo SpA was not interested in the former Malta Shipyards if employees were kept on.

Dr Gonzi said the workers' interests were therefore safeguarded through the inception of early retirement schemes. The few employees who had chosen not to take up any such schemes had been assigned other work in the public sector without any loss of benefits, even before any form of transfer to Palumbo.

The only workers on the dockyard's books today were those on weekly contracts in the super yacht area.

Dr Gonzi pointed out that Palumbo would not be buying MSL but only renting part of the land that MSL used to rent from the government, and that the government would now rent to Palumbo.