The Labour leader had no idea how to reduce water and electricity tariffs so he changed his version of how he would be doing this for the fourth time , the Finance Ministry said.

In a statement referring to Joseph Muscat's address at Ta' Giorni yesterday, when he said that Labour would bring down the tariffs by being wise in its actions, using the latest technology and converting the power station to gas, removing the dependence on oil, the ministry said that the Labour leader was coming up with different version because he did not know what to do.

The ministry said that until a few months ago, he had promised he would reduce the tariffs by reducing €12 million from the Return on Capital Employed formula. But Standard and Poor's clearly said this was not possible.

After continuing to insist that the power station should be converted to diesel, it seemed he now accepted what the government had been saying that this would have meant that tariffs would have had to increase by €30 million.

He then said he met the private operators and was willing to consider buying electricity from them. However, no details of these talks had been given.

The Labour leader was now saying he would opt for gas. The minister said the government had always been consistent in that the new power station could also be operated on gas once such infrastructure became available.