Labour leader Joseph Muscat said today that the fact that more than €111 million have already been paid to BWSC for the power station extension showed that somebody was in a hurry.
It was shameful, he said, how the power station extension was proceeding 'at the speed of light' even though this controversial decision was still being discussed by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.
Corruption, he said, was a tax which burdened all the people, who were seeing that tax money squandered. This case, he said, was one of the defining moment of this legislature, the other being how the government gave its minister double pay.
This government, he said, had lost the economic plot and the moral right to govern.
Dr Muscat said the people's biggest concern today was not the level of their salaries, but their purchasing power.
Speaking in a One Radio interview, Dr Muscat said that last Friday's protest in Valletta reflected the people's genuine concern about the burden of rising prices, notably fuels.
Malta, he said, deserved greater transparency in the way oil was being procured. The government had no control over international oil prices, but it had control over the duties it imposed on oil imports, and such duties were actually raised at the last Budget.
Malta currently had record petrol prices even though international oil prices were not at their highest, Dr Muscat said.
The government needed to explain how prices in Malta did not fluctuate in the same way as overseas prices did.
Malta also needed to reduce its dependence on oil. It was a major strategic mistake for the Gonzi government to have opted for a power station which used heavy fuel oil when even some oil-producing gulf countries were opting for gas plants. This technology would get more expensive as well as being environmentally harmful.
Dr Muscat said the people's biggest concern today was not the level of their salaries, but their purchasing power.
The government, therefore, needed to tackle unjustified price increases. It was unacceptable that inflation in Malta was twice that of the eurozone, when salaries in Malta were among the lowest - even when one excluded the recent fuel and gas increases. The biggest concern in Malta was the rising cost of unprocessed food.
For a start, the government could rein in its own prices. The government had little or no control on the price of flour for bakers, for example, but it could control the costs of fuel and electricity which the bakers used. and the national insurance they paid.
On the Nationalist Party, Dr Muscat noted how John Dalli and Jean-Pierre Farrugia had said publicly what others had said privately, about the party having lost its way and its purpose.
At the same time, the government had lost its moral majority, even in parliament, he said, although it might still have the numbers.
Dr Muscat stressed that it would not be enough for people to switch their votes between PN candidates or not vote at all. The country's course could only be changed with a vote to Labour candidates.
He said he was not against talks on MPs' and ministers' salaries, but it had been shameful how the government gave ministers a second salary. The fund which the Labour Party had created would be transparent, and those MPs who contributed to it (from the recently given raise) would be known, along with the amount contributed.
He said the personal emoluments listed in the Budget over the past two years did not fully list the payments which were being given to ministers. This amounted to misleading of the House and contempt of Parliament. One might try to justify it under some other line item, but it was clearly and morally wrong and the Opposition would hold the Finance Minister to account.