Updated 5.30pm
Naxxar mayor Anne Marie Muscat Fenech Adami has refused to resign from her post following conflict of interest allegations, despite pressure from her party to do so.
Muscat Fenech Adami was elected to the Naxxar local council as a PN candidate.
The PN asked for Muscat Fenech Adami's resignation after she voted in favour of a massive residential and commercial complex on the parking lot of the former Naxxar trade fair grounds - despite the PN saying it instructed her to vote against the project.
It later emerged that Muscat Fenech Adami is a company secretary in a firm partly owned by Edwin Mintoff, the project’s architect.
In a statement issued just one hour before a 24-hour ultimatum given to her by PN general secretary Michael Piccinino expired, she said she was morally convinced that she had done nothing wrong.
Piccinino has now written to the PN's ethics committee and asked it to investigate her.
"The PN had given the mayor clear guidance that the council should vote against the project," the party said. "The PN expects the highest standards from its officials and those who represent it."
In her statement on Monday, Muscat Fenech Adami said:
“I conscientiously believe both on a personal and political level, I have acted with transparency and political ethics, while together with the councillors, I have sought the interests of the locality and our residents.
"Therefore, I am morally convinced that I must continue my work as mayor of Naxxar. This is also in line with the strong mandate given to me by Naxxar residents to play this role, which should not be undermined by any political game, especially when it is not based on facts,” she said in a statement on Monday.
Muscat Fenech Adami said that the company being mentioned, Chalet Bulgari, of which she is secretary, has no projects in Malta, but only a project abroad. She was chosen as the secretary by a consortium shareholder who has nothing to do with the Naxxar project, she said.
She added that she has no decision-making power over this board, and she had no contractual relationship with Mintoff, the Naxxar project architect and Chalet Bulgari shareholder.
The approved project will be split into two elliptical blocks - measuring eight and 10 floors high - and will include public open space in between the two towers.
Mayor defends Naxxar PA vote
On the approved project, Muscat Fenech Adami said her vote at the Planning Authority was a “full reflection” of the sentiment and decision of the local council.
“This is the political democracy and my integrity with which I have always led in the council,” she said, arguing that the council had treated the project “like any other development project carried out in Naxxar”.
Naxxar councillors discussed the project, but did not take a vote on how the mayor should vote during the PA hearing.
During that hearing, Muscat Fenech Adami criticised the lack of a traffic impact assessment, saying at one point "“I cannot vote on this application without knowing the consequences of what is being proposed.”
But she later voted in favour of the project, saying "we cannot have everything".
On Monday, Muscat Fenech Adami insisted that the council had managed to change the development initially being proposed to one with a drastically reduced footprint.
She said the council had also reached an agreement with the developer to reduce the number of floors, even if policies gave it the right to build higher.
“I promise that with the same commitment that I have shown in the last four years, together with the whole Naxxar local council, we will continue to put the interests of the locality before any other interest,” she said.