Repubblika has filed a constitutional application calling on the court to declare the amount the “corrupt” ElectroGas contract is costing consumers and the state’s responsibility in the deal.

In its application, Repubblika is asking the court to order ElectroGas to pay the difference on the increase in expenses, which is the “fruit of corruption”, and recognise that the state’s actions breached the public’s rights. 

“Corruption has its victims and in the case of the ElectroGas contract the victims are all those who pay an electricity bill,” Repubblika said in a statement.

It noted that despite revelations on the deal, the first of which came from assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, a damning NAO report, and continued protests, the government has failed to take action.

“Our action is also part of our effort to push Maltese institutions to implement laws and curb financial fraud and corruption. This should be done by those who threaten the government, but the government is corrupted to its core. That is why Malta has a reputation for being one of the few jurisdictions in the world that is not trusted for financial transactions.”

The ElectroGas consortium was selected to build and operate the LNG power station in Delimara back in October 2013, with a deal eventually signed in April 2015 and the project inaugurated two years later.

One of the Labour Party’s main pledges ahead of the 2013 general election, the power station was sold to the public as a way of producing clean energy and improving electricity generation efficiency, allowing the government to significantly slash tariffs.

However, the deal itself has raised eyebrows for several years, especially after the Daphne Project revealed in 2018 that ElectroGas was using one of its partners, Socar, as a middleman, when purchasing LNG, instead of purchasing directly at the source.

The Guardian estimated that Socar is paying Shell around $113 million a year for LNG and then selling it to Electrogas for $153 million – pocketing a tidy $40 million in the process. Electrogas then sells the LNG to Enemalta for the same price of $153 million and the gas is then converted into electricity and distributed around Malta.

Energy experts have questioned the logic behind this agreement, arguing that Maltese taxpayers would have stood to save tens of millions of euro had Enemalta agreed to purchase LNG directly from Shell.

Over 200,000 sensitive ElectroGas documents had been leaked to Caruana Galizia in the months leading up to her murder. Matthew Caruana Galizia has suggested that the news that Fenech owns the Dubai company 17 Black could have resulted in ElectroGas defaulting on government-guaranteed loans worth €600 million, which would have triggered a major economic crisis.

Most recently, Electrogas shareholder Paul Apap Bologna transferred $200,000 to Yorgen Fenech’s 17 Black using an almost identical offshore structure. His appearances in Parliament’s public accounts committee have raised eyebrows.