Updated 1.06pm
Consumers have been slapped with a 4c hike in petrol and diesel while Minister Konrad Mizzi hides from the press with his Panama company, the Nationalist Party said today.
Addressing a press conference, Shadow Energy Minister Marthese Portelli said record low oil prices had not been reflected at the pumps.
She said consumers had now been faced with an “astronomical” rise in fuel costs despite the government’s pledge to keep prices stable.
Brandishing a copy of a calendar sent out by Dr Mizzi promising cheaper and stable fuel prices, Dr Portelli said that promise had already been broken.
Dr Portelli noted that the PL had called for street protests in 2011, when fuel prices were at the exact same levels as they were today.
Hitting out at the Labour government’s “hypocrisy”, Dr Portelli said a PN government would pass on any savings from low oil prices to consumers.
She reminded journalists that two years ago, the Prime Minister had called a press conference at Castille to announce a 2c reduction in petrol prices.
Dr Portelli said Dr Muscat and Dr Mizzi did not even have the decency to face the press over this price hike.
Asked by the Times of Malta if the PN would go back to the ‘old’ system of monthly fuel price fluctuations, Dr Portelli said the PN would ensure that any savings made from low oil prices would be passed on to the consumer.
In a subsequent tweet, the government's head of communications Kurt Farrugia wrote that the then-PL opposition had protested electricity prices back in 2011. "If you had your way with HFO [Heavy Fuel Oil] bills would go up!" he added.
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In a statement, the Partit Demokratiku also slammed the fuel price increase, saying that while the government had done nothing to reduce prices when oil prices declined, only to raise prices at the slightest sign of a rally in prices.
The government had guaranteed a private company's loan in a secret contract and pledged to buy electricity at higher prices than that possible through the interconnector, the party said.
Failure to liberalise the fuel sector simply meant consumers had to dig deeper into their pockets, the PD said, as it challenged the government to hold a press conference to answer questions about this fuel price hike.
Konrad Mizzi's ministry in a statement in the evening said the opposition lacked the credentials to speak about fuel prices since under the previous administration, fuel prices were among the highest ever.
The ministry said the current petrol price in Malta is 20c cheaper than it was at the end of the PN government, and diesel is 22c cheaper.
Current prices are also significantly cheaper than the European average, it said. Furthermore, this government is offering stability for a number of months whereas under the former government prices changed every month.
The ministry said that in contrast to what used to happen under the former government, electricity tariffs are not changing, whereas in the past they depended on the oil price. Yet the opposition was still speaking against the conversion to gas from heavy fuel oil.
The ministry said it was the PN which had become embroiled in the oil procurement scandal at the end of the last legislature and it was the PN government which at the end of its term set up a power station using heavy fuel oil.