Robert Arrigo has accused Bernard Grech of lying to the public and making his party’s executive “look like idiots”, saying the Nationalist Party leader should do the honourable thing and resign.
In a public broadside published to his Facebook profile, Arrigo said his party leader had lied when he said, on national television, that a report into Naxxar mayor Anne Marie Muscat Fenech Adami’s conduct had not yet been concluded.
“He said the report was not done, when actually it was,” Arrigo, whose term as deputy PN leader ended last week, wrote.
Grech had tried to force Muscat Fenech Adami out of the party last December, after she voted in favour of a controversial large-scale apartment project in Naxxar. But the mayor had defied the PN leader, prompting him to request an ethics probe into her conduct.
The PN has remained tight-lipped about that probe. Muscat Fenech Adami has remained in her post as a PN Naxxar mayor.
In an appearance on TVM show Xtra early in June, Grech was evasive when asked about the report and implied that it had not yet been concluded.
But writing on Monday, Arrigo said that was not true. The report was “ready months ago” but it contained a result that Grech did not like, Arrigo said.
“Of course, he is never at fault, not even with a horrible showing in the general elections,” Arrigo said, noting that others had resigned after electoral showings that were not as bad as Grech’s.
“A Kap [party leader] belittling, lying about his own party, about the board who is serious, and killing the Amminstrativ [party administrative], who were made to look like idiots,” he wrote. "A Kap lying to himself on TV.”
The PN was handed a drubbing in the 2022 general election, losing to Labour by a record margin.
Arrigo was elected PN deputy leader during the tenure of Adrian Delia and remained in that post after Grech succeeded Delia as party leader, despite having initially said he intended to resign. He also served as party treasurer for a period.
The Sliema businessman has been elected in two districts for four consecutive elections and is the shadow minister for tourism.
His departure from the PN leadership was not a celebratory one. In his outgoing speech as PN deputy leader, he said that he was sidelined by the party without explanation and barred from attending party events.
On Monday evening, he published a photo of a letter from the Commissioner for Inland Revenue, showing that the PN owes more than €200,000 in unpaid VAT. The letter was addressed to him personally, on behalf of PN media arm Media.Link Communications.
“This is the letter that I received from the Office of the Commissioner for Revenue due to unpaid VAT by PN during Bernard Grech's tenure as Kap,” Arrigo wrote.
Grech, who was in the audience for Arrigo’s outgoing speech, has not commented publicly about his former deputy’s accusations.
Grech had previously said he intended to have a woman as deputy leader of the PN. That plan fell by the wayside, however, when only Alex Perici Calascione ran for the post.
Perici Calascione takes over from Arrigo and former PN deputy leader David Agius, with the two deputy roles now amalgamated into one.