Energy Minister Miriam Dalli’s ministry is organising just another propaganda event entitled “Sustainable Development Multi-Stakeholder Forum” at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Qawra on 12 November, to supposedly discuss Malta’s progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and its long-term sustainability strategy.
The hotel is owned by Tumas Group, which is also one of the major shareholders in Electrogas. Yorgen Fenech of Tumas Group, admitted to the Police of commissioning and paying for the murder of a journalist.
NGO Repubblika, one of the organisations invited to the event is refusing to participate because the hotel belongs to the Tumas Group. The organisation has called on the ministry to relocate the event, arguing that a government consultation on sustainable development should take account of the principles of justice, accountability and integrity in public life.
Some sensibility would be the last thing you would expect from Labour government ministers.
Press release by Repubblika below.
REPUBBLIKA WILL NOT ATTEND GOVERNMENT FORUM AT TUMAS GROUP HOTEL
Repubblika has been invited to participate in the Sustainable Development Forum being organised by the Ministry for Energy, the Environment and the Regeneration of the Grand Harbour on 12 November.
We regret that we cannot accept the invitation because the Ministry has chosen to hold the event at the DoubleTree by Hilton Malta, a hotel belonging to the Tumas Group, the business group of Yorgen Fenech’s family.
The discussion the government wants to hold is important, and we would like to participate. But first and foremost, we are citizens of conscience.
We have heard and read the evidence presented by the Maltese State itself at Yorgen Fenech’s trial for the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. We cannot pretend that what we have learned makes no difference and walk into a hotel belonging to his family’s business group to participate in a government consultation.
It is bad enough that the Energy Ministry has not freed us from the obligation to pay for electricity purchased from Electrogas, a company in which Yorgen Fenech has a financial interest. We should not also be expected to patronise his family’s hotels in order to participate in a public consultation.
The choice is all the more absurd considering that the subject under discussion is sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 16) require justice and effective, accountable and inclusive institutions. There can be no sustainable development without justice, accountability and integrity in public life.
The choice of venue is not an administrative detail. It is a choice about where the government spends the public’s money and whom it chooses to pay. We are entitled to expect the Energy Ministry to make those choices with a conscience.
Malta is not short of conference venues. There was no need for the government to choose a Tumas Group property.
We therefore call on the Ministry to change the venue of the forum. If it does so, we will be happy to participate and contribute to the discussion.
Justice is not separate from sustainable development. It is one of its foundations.
08.10.2026
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
Leave a Reply