The PN administrative council on Thursday cautioned against a repeat of a case in which a Nationalist mayor last year voted in favour of a controversial large-scale apartment project in Naxxar.

The decision comes one day after former PN deputy leader Robert Arrigo claimed Bernard Grech had lied when he said, on national television, that the report into Naxxar mayor Anne Marie Muscat Fenech Adami’s conduct had not yet been concluded. Grech denied the claim.

The case dates to December of last year, when Muscat Fenech Adami 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.

Grech had tried to force Muscat Fenech Adami out of the party, but the mayor had defied the PN leader, prompting him to request an ethics probe into her conduct. 

On Thursday, the PN issued a brief statement saying its administrative council had discussed the Naxxar case and decided on a way forward.

"While the party heard out Muscat Fenech Adami, it was concluded, and agreed, that things could have been carried out in a better way to avoid any doubt, and therefore, similar situations should be avoided," the statement read.

It is unclear, from the statement, whether the council was referring to Muscat Fenech Adami's conduct or the party's handling of the controversial issue.

Separately, the council also discussed allegations by St Julian’s mayor Albert Buttigieg that a party official had promised a construction “fat cat” the vocal PN candidate would be “shut up”.

Buttigieg made the claims in a Times of Malta opinion piece, saying the unnamed official promised the “fat cat” that he would be silenced during a meeting in a hotel earlier this year.

The mayor was given 24 hours to substantiate the claims, with the PN’s ethics commission launching a probe at the request of Grech’s right-hand man Ray Bezzina. Bezzina is understood to be the PN official referenced by Buttigieg.

On Thursday, the PN said "no proof has been brought forward about the claim on Bezzina or any other official. It was also established that in all instances, similar suspicions should be immediately raised within the party's structures, and not in any other forum."