Electrogas deal is ‘soaked in blood’, says Moviment Graffitti
Moviment Graffitti on Saturday described the Electrogas power station project a “blood-soaked deal”.
In an activity just outside the power station in Delimara, on the fourth year anniversary from the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination, the NGO called for an investigation into the deal.
The NGO described the site a “monument to corruption” for which Daphne Caruana Galizia was killed, recalling how the former chief of staff of the PM, Keith Schembri and former Energy minister Konrad Mizzi were implicated “in one of the most corrupt deals the county has ever witnessed”.
The investigation by Galizia endangered the government, big business, and that the prosecutions into those deals and the murders is stalling, with Konrad Mizzi failing to appear in PAC sitting this week.
The precise motive and the number and identity of people involved in both commissioning the assassination and in preventing justice from being done remains an open question for the courts to find the answer to, the organisation said.
Instead of prosecutions, reports are compiled and left hidden in some drawer. Instead of serious investigation, we must suffer through the game of ‘catch me if you can’ currently being played out in Parliament, as Konrad Mizzi does his best to avoid answering for his misdeeds, Graffitti added.
Every day, we continue to live under what the public inquiry calls “a structured system of abuse […] born of the communion between public administration and big business”.
In December of 2019, we were at Castille, demanding that the man under whose watch all this happened, who was primarily responsible for undermining every institution that should have provided oversight against corruption, resign immediately, the NGO said.
We were concerned about the dire situation that engulfed the democratic institutions of our country, because we felt that our country had hit rock bottom in unprecedented ways.
Earlier this year in July, we were again at Castille, marking the conclusion of the public inquiry’s findings, which placed political responsibility at Cabinet’s feet. It described their inaction in the face of mounting evidence as “inexcusable”.
The inquiry board drew particular attention to Cabinet’s inaction after details about 17 Black came out. It highlighted the fact that this information, which linked the LNG tanker behind us to kickbacks received by Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, was known months before the assassination. However, ministers took no action, leaving the culture of impunity to fester, with deadly consequences.
It is important to remember that, to the very person who was known to be at the very centre of this “incestuous relationship”, and who is now charged with complicity in murder, our Justice Minister said: “You were in my heart during all of this.”
Our call for the resignation of Edward Zammit Lewis still stands. We have no faith in his ability to oversee the important reforms required to see that justice is done, Graffitti said.