Last updated 8.35 p.m. Adds comments by Charles Mangion.
A meeting of the Public Accounts Committee which was due to debate the power station extension contract was adjourned sine die this evening after the government majority voted against a list of individuals who the chairman had wanted to summon to give evidence.
Opposition leader Joseph Muscat said that what was taking place was "a travesty of public scrutiny".
When the meeting started and committee chairman Charles Mangion was about to propose the list of people to be summoned, Dr Gatt said that while he had no objection to a debate by the committee on the Auditor General's report on the power station contract, he felt that the summoning of witnesses by the Committee undermined the Auditor-General which had itself interviewed the same people as part of an 11-month investigation.
The committee, he said, should not substitute the Auditor-General's office. Once the committee had asked the Auditor General to conduct an investigation, it should not, now, conduct its own investigation.
Dr Mangion disagreed with Dr Gatt and said there were several instances in the past when House committees questioned individuals in public as part of their scrutiny role. This, he said, did not undermine the Audit Office report.
Opposition leader Joseph Muscat asked Dr Gatt if he was objecting to the evidence of persons who were not civil servants, or everyone.
Dr Gatt said he was objecting to everyone because this was a point of principle. The committee had drawn up terms of reference for the National Auditor Office (NAO) to investigate the power station contract on its behalf. The NAO report was tabled in the House and debated. Now the committee was acting as if the Auditor-General's work was a waste of time.
Dr Muscat said this committee was strengthening the work of the Audiutor-General particularly because some of the people he had questioned had not given clear replies and were evasive. MPs, he said, also had a duty to face and question the people involved in this issue. Furthermore, the summoning of witnesses was the same procedure used, for example, in the investigation on Radio of the Mediterranean.
Dr Gatt said he was requesting a vote on the people who the chairman was proposing to summon.
A vote was then put for each witness and all were denied with the government MPs voting against.
The people who the chairman had wished to summon were Frans Attard, Director of the Contacts Committee, Alfred Camilleri, Ing Karl Camilleri, Ing Albert Farrugia, Edmond Gatt Baldcacchino who is the current Enemalta chairman, John Gatt, permanent secretary at the Infrastructure Ministry, Ing Peter Grima, Ing Joseph Mifsud, Joseph Mizzi, BWSC local representative, David Spiteri Gingell, and former Enemalta chairman Ing Alex Tranter.
Dr Gatt said that since the chairman had not proposed that the Auditor-General be summoned, he was moving a motion to thank the Auditor-General. He said the committee should not substitute the National Audit Office and anyone who suspected wrongdoing could refer to the police.
Dr Muscat said the fact that the committee could not summon the witnesses made a travesty of the committee's monitoring role.
Dr Mangion said he was putting off the meeting to a future date for the Speaker to rule how the committee could proceed.
Dr Mangion later addressed the House where he requested the ruling by the Speaker. He said the main purpose of the Public Accounts Committee was to scrutinize the workings of the government, a fact reinforced by the fact that the committee was chaired by an Opposition MP. Standing Orders gave the committee the authority to summon witnesses. That the committee was unable to summon witnesses went against all practice. If the committee had to agree on who should be summoned, the decision would ultimately be in the hands of the government, which had a majority.
He therefore asked the Chair whether the need for committee agreement to summon witnesses violated Standing Orders.
Foreign Minister Tonio Borg said it was the committee, not the chairman, who had the authority to summon witnesses.
Furthermore, he said, witnesses had been summoned and gave evidence before the Auditor-General following a request by the Public Accounts Committee itself, and scrutiny, therefore, had been made.