Opposition leader Joseph Muscat kept up his attack on BWSC this morning, saying that the company had broken Maltese law when it did not declare that a number of its subcontractors had been involved in cases of corruption abroad.
This failure, Dr Muscat said at a political conference in Zurrieq, meant that the government could impose a fine equivalent to 10% of the €200m value of the contract of the power station extension.
The government needed to explain whether it would impose this penalty, Dr Muscat said.
The people's money was involved, he said, and the prime minister needed to declare what legal advice had been given about the recovery of these funds.
In a reference to the EU's decision to close infringement proceedings related to the power station extension contract, Dr Muscat said the EU had investigated whether EU rules had been broken.
However, a Labour government, upon being elected, would reopen investigations into corruption and the Auditor-General and the other institutions would be given all the tools to investigate this case.
Ultimately, Dr Muscat said, the most important issue at the core of this case was that Malta was passing over a chance to extend the power station using technology which was not as environmentally harmful as heavy fuel oil, which was the government's preference.
He stressed that a Labour government, within days of taking office, would launch the process to phase out the use of heavy fuel oil and replace it with cleaner technology, such as gas. The fact that the government had chosen heavy fuel oil was something which would remain on the prime minister's conscience, Dr Muscat said.
NO ASSURANCE ON BILLING SOFTWARE
In another part of his speech, Dr Muscat said that for weeks, he had responsibly been seeking an assurance that the instructions given to IBM on the writing of software tallied with the legal notice on the water and electricity billing structure.
Dr Muscat said it was a mystery that no answer had been given yet. This, he said, should be a straight forward yes or no matter.
He knew that there was a panic in Arms Ltd but he did not know about what, Dr Muscat said.
However his patience and that of the people was running out and the government should issue the assurance that was being sought.