What followed was a surreal hour during which Mizzi recounted the Labour government’s achievements in the energy sector with several hysterical tirades aimed at Nationalist MPs on the committee in between.   

The former minister set the tone for the meeting at the start, telling the committee that his “cordiality and tone” would reflect the manner in which he was addressed by the PN’s MPs. 

Mizzi highlighted concerns prior to 2013 about the country’s high electricity tariffs and the impact this was having on families and business, but proceedings quickly degenerated into a shouting match. 

At one point, Mizzi was discussing the changes undertaken in the energy sector using the word ‘we’. 

“Who is we?” asked Fenech Adami. “The government, the Labour government,” Mizzi replied, to which Fenech Adami asked whether this included Keith Schembri. 

What followed for a tit-for-tat between PN MPs on the committee and Mizzi and his lawyers, who insisted that according to the committee’s guidelines, he had the right to first make his statement and then reply to questions after that.   

Tempers started to flare, with Mizzi accusing the PN MPs of trying to provoke him. “When I see you before me I think, what have you ever done for the Maltese people? One, two, three together, what have you done?”

He further accused PAC chairman Beppe Fenech Adami of having a sense of entitlement, simply because his father was a former Prime Minister, referring to the PN as “your royal highness” throughout the proceedings.  

About an hour-and-a-half into the sitting, Karol Aquilina referred to a 2019 ruling in which the Speaker said that a statement at the beginning of a sitting should not be longer than 5-10 minutes. 

The ruling was delivered when PN MP Jason Azzopardi appeared before the committee and asked to give a statement at the start of his grilling.

Mizzi insisted that this didn’t apply to “oral presentations”, accusing PN MPs of trying to censor him. 

While the auditor general’s investigation into the deal had raised some administrative issues, he said they were nothing with the issue flagged with the BWSC power station built by the PN. 

He quoted excerpts from the NAO’s report which, while raising concerns about some aspects of the project found that it was generally needed and implemented well, including the manner in which a request for proposals was issued and the timely manner in which the project was delivered. 

The project, he said, had also been evaluated by the European Commission, which had not flagged any issues, adding that big banks would never have agreed to finance the project had things not been done properly.

While entertaining at times, it is safe to say that the two-hour sitting has left the country is none the wiser about the manner in which the contract was awarded to Electrogas. 

Mizzi’s deposition was suspended after two hours since MPs needed to be in the chamber for the start of parliamentary questions. He informed the committee that he was not done with his speech, and still had to go through the NAO’s report “chapter by chapter”.

He will now be informed about the date of the next sitting.

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