Opposition leader Adrian Delia has dismissed a Times of Malta report on messages between him and Yorgen Fenech as a mudslinging attempt aimed at derailing his work.
In an interview on Nationalist Party media on Sunday, Delia said that reports about him were nothing but attempts by the Labour Party to “blackmail, threaten, scare or silence him”.
“If the Labour Party thinks it can somehow try to blackmail, threaten, scare or silence me, it will not succeed," he said, claiming the Times of Malta story was an attempt to silence him because of his actions over the hospitals contract and the Egrant report, among others.
Times of Malta reported on Sunday that Delia and Fenech exchanged WhatsApp messages in the first half of 2019. By then, it had already been revealed that Fenech owned the once-secret company 17 Black.
Delia said during the interview he had repeatedly denied he had any connection to Fenech but he did not refer specifically to the WhatsApp messages.
Earlier, Sunday, Times of Malta reported that some 20 MPs had already called on PN general secretary Francis Zammit Dimech to call for an urgent parliamentary group meeting on the matter. The MPs are still waiting for a reply.
The PN leader also failed to comment on this matter and made no mention of the MPs' call.
Meanwhile, Delia again welcomed the new regulations for the citizenship scheme unveiled by the government on Friday.
The PN leader said that the government had listened to the Opposition and had scrapped the cash-or-passports scheme, which Delia said he had always spoken out against.
“If the new scheme will truly attract good investments, then we agree but if this is just a cosmetic change in name, then we must take a different position,” the PN leader said.
On the hospital privatisation deal, Delia said that he will continue fighting until the hospitals are handed back to the Maltese people.
“[Prime Minister] Robert Abela’s delaying tactics are a waste of taxpayers’ money. Let’s come together to get rid of the Steward contract.
“Our health professionals are among the best in the world and we should be investing in them not in businesspeople who have no experience in running hospitals,” Delia said.
Referring to reports that the head of Steward Healthcare has been in Malta to negotiate with the government, Delia said that if this was really the case, then the prime minister must “stand his ground”.
“The PN is doing its part. We should not have to wait months or years for the courts’ decisions when we can take the decision ourselves now,” he said.