In February 2013, at the peak of a general election, the Labour Party’s rallying cry bellowed across the island: no more costly electricity bills. Back then it was the soundtrack to our life, the tsk-tsk of people indignant about the bills.
But it was a fair cry – the tabs were high – €500 every three months were not unheard of. There was a reason for this: the world was going through a recession, the price of oil was sky high, and our power station was fuelled by oil.
The Malta-Sicily interconnector was still being laid on the seabed. Once it was up and running, we could buy electricity directly from the continent, which is much cheaper than our own.
But Labour’s electoral campaign promise went beyond that. They fanfared that they would be building a new gas-fired power station. All news editors were called in for a special meeting at the Labour Party’s headquarters and shown plans of this “election clincher”.
Would a new power station slash our bills? Did we need one? No one really asked these questions because: a) New Labour was fascinating; b) the others were dreary bores who, shock horror, accepted homemade Tal-Lira clocks as gifts; and c) the new power station idea was fronted by a fresh face, a certain tall and lanky Konrad Mizzi, who spoke so fast and so fervidly that we just blinked and got blinkered.
Labour was elected. Soon, the utility bills were reduced. There was an element of luck here – by April 2013, the world was coming out of the recession and the price of oil fell drastically. And the plans for the new power station went ahead even when the interconnector was finally switched on.
At that point we questioned if we needed a new power station. “Of course we do,” nodded a very eager Mizzi with eyes shining bright. In retrospect, we failed to see the dollar signs in his sparkling eyes.
We were told the power station was going to be built by the Electrogas consortium of foreign and local companies. The foreign ones were the German company Siemens, and Azerbaijan’s energy company, Socar, owned by President Ilham Aliyev, whom Joseph Muscat, his chief of staff Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi met on a secret visit to Baku in December 2014. Maltese companies Tumas and Gasan and businessman Paul Apap Bologna were the Maltese members of the consortium. Oddly, Tumas Group CEO Yorgen Fenech also had some extra shares in his own name.
A deal was signed with Energy Minister Mizzi. Electrogas was to build the power station and the government’s Enemalta would buy all the electricity it produced – regardless of whether we needed it all – at a fixed price for the next 18 years. And Mizzi simply radiated delight.
There was a bit of a hurdle. The banks would not lend Electrogas the money they needed to build the power station. No problem, said the government, we’ll issue a €360 million State guarantee to back you up; if Electrogas can’t pay up, the Maltese citizens will. This was unprecedented, and obviously the banks soon pumped out the monies.
By the end of the 18 years we would have paid millions more than necessary
There was another surprise. Suddenly the power station was going to be supplied by an LNG tanker permanently berthed in Marsaxlokk Bay. Meanwhile, Mizzi also informed us that a third of Enemalta was bought by a Chinese company, Shanghai Electric. What? When? Why? Where? Who? It seems a Chinese negotiator called Cheng Chen had knocked on Mizzi’s door and he was taken in.
It helped that Mizzi and Chen had a friend – and a plan – in common. They were both plotting with Brian Tonna of Nexia BT, a Maltese firm of auditors, to buy a secret company in Panama. In fact, Tonna opened four secret companies: one called Hearnville for Mizzi; another one called Torbridge for Chen; one called Tillgate for Schembri; and a company called Egrant for someone so important the name could not be written down in an e-mail.
The only reason for secret companies in Panama is for their owners to hide money they want no one to know about. Mizzi and Schembri are top government representatives, they are obliged to declare all their assets. What money did they want to stash away?
Earlier this year, the Daphne Project revealed that $150,000 every month would be passed on to Hearnville and Tillgate – Mizzi and Schembri – from a Dubai company called 17 Black that was being pumped with money from someone in Azerbaijan and from the local agent of the LNG tanker. This reeked of illicit kickbacks.
Who was 17 Black, we asked?
Reuters International and Times of Malta last week revealed that the owner of 17 Black is none other than Fenech, director of Electrogas and CEO of Tumas Group.
No one was meant to know all this. We only know because of leaked e-mails of Mossack Fonseca, the Panama Papers, leaked FIAU reports, the investigations of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, and the Daphne Project, which took over her work after she was killed.
We never needed the €450 million new power station. One can only conclude it was built so that Mizzi and Schembri would get hefty ‘pocket money’ on top of their government salary.
Is Muscat furious with them for planning to receive kickbacks on a national project? Is he worried that we may be paying higher bills because of their underground deal? Is he aghast and mortified at the facts staring him in his face? Has he taken immediate action to distance himself from this?
No. The Prime Minister does not defend us, the electricity bill payers, he defends his mates, even in court where he obstructs the magisterial inquiry requested by the Opposition every inch of the way.
When the Egrant story broke out in 2017, he protected them by holding an election, and now last week, he told us that we have to show how we feel about him by voting for him in the European Parliament elections. Muscat still has to realise that a million votes won’t make him and his aides any less corrupt.
We are the ones paying for the €450 million power station. We have to buy its electricity at double the price. By the end of the 18 years we would have paid millions more than necessary just so that Muscat’s mates can get their cut. Can you imagine how slashed our electricity bills should be by now?
The 2013 rallying cry of ‘No More Costly Bills’ appears to be nothing but a ploy by Mizzi and Schembri – protected by Muscat – not to clinch the election but to grab money from us and stash it in their fat, greedy pockets.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece