Parliament takes no further action against Alex Borg over Fort Chambray comments
Speaker's casting vote also stops further action against Clifton Grima and the Office of the Prime Minister on ethics complaints
The Parliamentary Standards Committee has voted against adopting the recommendations of the Standards Commissioner on allegedly misleading comments made by Opposition leader Alex Borg on the Fort Chambray concession.
The committee also voted against adopting the commissioner’s recommendations in two separate cases concerning the use of public funds for advertising, involving Education Minister Clifton Grima and the Office of the Prime Minister.
In May, the standards commissioner found that Borg had breached ethics by making misleading comments about responsibility for the restoration of Fort Chambray. The comments, and the subsequent complaint, predated Borg’s appointment as Opposition leader, when he was still serving as a PN MP.
The commissioner requested that Borg issue a written apology, which he refused, resulting in the case being referred to the parliamentary committee.
During Monday’s sitting, PN MPs Mark Anthony Sammut and Joe Giglio argued that no further action was necessary, noting that Borg had since apologised publicly and corrected his statements in subsequent media interviews.
Labour members of the committee - Justice Minister Jonathan Attard and Parliamentary Secretary for Social Dialogue Andy Ellul - countered that Borg had failed to cooperate with the commissioner and said it was “deplorable” for an MP to attempt to mislead the House.
Casting his deciding vote, committee chair Speaker Anġlu Farrugia said that whether Borg’s statement - that responsibility for restoration works had been handed over to the concessionaires - amounted to a “lie” was a matter of interpretation.
Farrugia also exercised his casting vote in the two other cases before the committee, both related to government advertising.
The first concerned a complaint filed by PN MP Karol Aquilina regarding a government-funded social media advert featuring Education Minister Clifton Grima, which Aquilina alleged amounted to personal political promotion in breach of the Ministerial Code of Ethics.
The second complaint, also filed by Aquilina, related to a sponsored Facebook video titled ‘10 more measures for people’s benefit’, which featured photographs of the prime minister and nine ministers and parliamentary secretaries.
In both cases, the commissioner ruled that parliamentary ethics had been breached, and admonished Grima and Prime Minister Robert Abela
The Speaker voted against adopting the commissioner’s recommendations in both cases, citing the fact that guidelines governing government advertising do not yet have the force of law.
Sammut insisted during the meeting that the commissioner had nevertheless found a breach of ethics independently of those guidelines.
As a result of the committee’s votes, no further action will be taken in any of the three cases.