“We are not linked to any political party”

So either the people at Sargas are a group of naive Norwegian scientists, or they think we’re a group of naive southern Mediterranean peasants.

Yesterday after 9pm the company released a statement which begins with the words:

Sargas has been prompted to react to a number of incorrect comments on its proposed technology.
Sargas is also concerned about the way the proposal has been debated in political fora. We had
never expected such a controversy. We have no agenda, are not linked to any former or present
politician or political party and our wish is to steer clear of any political controversy. We have
avoided answering the evidently loaded comments which are based on unfounded statements and
ideas. So instead we try to clarify some misconceptions.

Perhaps it’s time for Sargas’s bosses to explain why they engaged former cabinet minister and current EU Commissioner John Dalli as their consultant on selling the project to the Maltese government, when he was a member of parliament for the governing Nationalist Party, if not because they thought that engaging him would secure them some special advantage.

What sort of consultancy could an accountant MP and former finance minister offer Sargas in Malta, otherwise? Or anywhere else, for that matter?

Perhaps at that time he held out to them the potential of seeling another of these power stations to Gaddafi’s Libya. How he must have salivated at the thought of the millions in commission which he stood to make, twice over.

Of course Sargas did not expect any political controversy. They thought it would be as easy as pie. You know how it is in these primitive southern Mediterranean societies where all is corruption. You engage a well-connected politician as your consultant and the deal goes through.

And now the Labour Party, which will soon form the next government, is on board and promising purchase.

Let’s give Sargas the benefit of the doubt, because after all, Malta is a hell of a long way from Norway in cultural terms. Maybe they took John Dalli at his own word and did not research thoroughly enough his background or the esteem in which he is not held by the government and the electorate.

The surest way how not to sell your power station to the government of Malta is to have the project linked in any way at all to John Dalli. He pushes it, and the customer backs off, suspecting that there is something very big in it for him, and regardless of the merits of the project itself, that’s enough to stop the show.

With Labour right now, it’s different. Joseph Muscat appears to have struck some sort of deal with John Dalli: you rant on against the government and make frequent appearances on Super One, and we’ll promise to buy that power station you appear to have a hand in.

In the past, it might have been different – there are still question marks for me over a couple of things that Dalli was involved in – but not now.

Labour is committing suicide by pushing John Dalli’s power station. If Labour plans to make the purchase of what Dalli is so keen to sell its first major scandal in government, then Joseph Muscat is even thicker than I thought he was.