Labour leader Joseph Muscat this morning challenged the government to bring a motion on the power station extension up for debate as soon as Parliament reconvened after the summer recess next week.
"If the prime minister is sure of what (Infrastructure Minister) Austin Gatt is telling him, and if he is sure of the stability of his government , he should hold the debate on the power station extension as soon as Parliament meets," Dr Muscat told a political conference yesterday.
The motion, announced by the Labour Party yesterday, condemns Dr Gatt over the way the contract for the extension of the Delimara power station was awarded and calls on the Prime Minister to remedy matters.
In his speech, at the PL club in St Paul's Bay, Dr Muscat hit out at the government for targeting social benefits as part of its spending cuts and accused it of adopting a policy of divide and rule by singling out assistance for single mothers as an area of review.
It would be better, Dr Muscat said, if the governemnt tackled the money being wasted to corruption and how people were getting away with lenient sentences even when they were taken to court. The government should also see how €4 million from the power station contract would go for commissions. Much could have been done with those €4 million.
Dr Muscat said the government had kept silent on a very serious statement made by a Judge last week, when, during a judgement on the scheme on the distribution of free energy-saving bulbs, the judge declared that he was not convinced that the scheme was fair and transparent and he could not understand how a company was included when it had not, primae facie, followed the regulations like the other participants. And this, the judge had added, did not appear to have been a mistake.
The responsible minister, or the Prime Minister needed to explain such a declaration by a Judge, Dr Muscat said.
Earlier in his speech Dr Muscat called for a sense of sacrifice across the Labour Party, from its officials to its members.
"We are not here for personal glory but for an ideal, and the ideal sometimes means sacrifice, and sacrifice sometimes means change," Dr Muscat said, without mentioning anybody in particular.
He said the PL was embarking on the second phase of its change process. In the current scenario, he said, the concept of political parties was being replaced by movements which grouped people of different hues.
He said the party had to have the courage to welcome back those who had left, whether it was their fault or the party's.
"We will not get anywhere if we continue to hold grudges. This a historic time for the PL. There is an air of change among the majority of the people, and the Pl needs to dismantle the walls it has built around it and be open for all."
MINISTRY'S REACTION
The Resources Ministry in a statement said the scheme for the granting of energy saving bulbs was still open and people could avail themselves of bulbs of various brands.
As for the court case instituted by some importers, the ministry said the issue was still sub- judice and it would not be prudent to comment at this stage, as Dr Muscat had done.