The Prime Minister this morning forged ahead with his attack on the Opposition for failing to take action about allegations of abuse involving former minister Giovanna Debono’s husband saying the Nationalist Party had been aware of the claims for at least a year.
Holding a copy of this letter published in today’s MaltaToday and dating to May last year, he read an e-mail to the PN general secretary Chris Said alleging that Mrs Debono’s husband Tony was dishing out instructions for works to be carried out in private residences for votes.
These works included a well in Nadur, a basement in Rabat and other works on garages in Gharb, car parks and private roads.
"They had been aware of the racket involving Mrs Debono’s husband for more than a year. It is not true that Dr Said was not aware on the true nature of these works," Dr Muscat charged.
"Rather than reporting the case to the police, Dr Said asked the whistleblower for a meeting so that he would try to help him.
“Why did not he go the police?"
Dr Said has insisted the email was consistent with what he had already stated.
Dr Muscat quoted Dr Said remarking that he had not taken action as the whistleblower had told him he was going to flag the case with Gozo Minister Anton Refalo.
"This is why the case is being investigated,” Dr Muscat said.
He added that the situation was getting more complicated, as the Nationalist Party opted to wait for the outcome of the investigation before taking action and noted that abuses were continuing under Labour.
"The police can investigate whatever they want as we have nothing to hide. However, I was blamed of interfering with the police for saying this...”
Dr Muscat said that this was only the tip of the iceberg and had been uncovered only following the introduction of the Whistleblower Act and the removal of time barring from allegations of corruption involving politicians.
Attempts to question PN leader Simon Busuttil about the matter following his public meeting in Mosta this morning proved futile as Dr Busuttil was immediately whisked into a car and ignored journalists’ attempts to get his remarks.
But in a statement issued early this afternoon, the Nationalist Party accused Dr Muscat of lying knowingly.
The PN said that, until yesterday, Dr Muscat had appointed himself judge and prosecutor and today he appointed himself as Dr Refalo’s lawyer.
The PN noted that Dr Refalo admitted to MaltaToday he learnt about the case in November.
This, the PN said, was not true because it was the whistleblower himself who last year said that he had informed the minister of everything several months before.
But even if what Dr Refalo said was true, the police had started to investigate the case on March 8, which was five months after Dr Refalo claimed he learnt about it.
Why did Dr Refalo not go to the police and when did Dr Refalo tell the Prime Minister about it, the PN asked.
The PN said it was now clear that Dr Muscat lied when he said the government learnt about the case from MaltaToday. He had driven himself into a corner from where he could only lie