The man who was nominated by the government to become the Planning Authority's new chairman admitted before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday that he was once offered a bribe by a policeman and although he refused it, failed to report the case.

The revelation was made by Anthony Borg as he was being grilled by parliament's appointments committee.

The government reacted immediately by withdrawing Borg's nomination, while Nationalist MP Karol Aquilina went to police headquarters to report the case himself.

Borg boasts of a 45-year career in the public service and has worked at the Planning Authority since its inception. It was in this context that Aquilina asked him whether he had ever seen any abuse at the authority.

After a pause, Borg recalled that around 12 years ago, when he was a case officer, a policeman had gone to him "with an envelope" asking for a favour.

"I immediately walked away and told him to never speak to me again," Borg told the committee.

"I don't know who he was and I don't want to know."

Aquilina asked Borg what he had done about the attempted bribe and whether he had reported the case to his superiors or put it down in writing somehow.

Borg said he never followed the case again and did not report it because he felt that refusing the bribe was enough and there was no need to take the case further.

A very stern Adrian Delia asked Borg whether he realised that while accepting a bribe was wrong, refusing it and then keeping silent was also wrong because it enabled corruption to continue.

'Nothing wrong in not reporting it'

Borg, sounding uncertain, defended his decision. He had not accepted the bribe, he insisted, and he had at the time seen nothing wrong in not reporting the matter.

"In football, if a player takes a bribe, he has committed a serious wrongdoing, But even if he does not accept the bribe, he must call out the fact that someone came to him trying to tempt him" Delia went on by way of example.

Borg admitted that even though he thought he had acted correctly and according to his conscience, he might have been wrong not to report the case. Were the same thing to happen again, he would immediately do so, he said. 

Aquilina insisted he could not let this go by, saying he felt it a duty to report the case and he would do so immediately after the meeting.  

Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo grilled Aquilina, asking him who was the planning minister back then, as the case happened under a Nationalist government.

As the hearing became more animated, Borg protested, saying he always acted with integrity and the case happened so long ago that even if he wanted to do something about it now, he would not even know where to start.

"I don't believe something like this will happen again, but if it were to happen again today, I would definitely take the case forward," he insisted.

Karol Aquilina later told Times of Malta that he had gone to police headquarters and was directed to report the case to the financial crime unit.

Planning and Environment Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi confirmed to Times of Malta that he had decided to withdraw Borg's nomination.