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Former Labour MP Louis Buhagiar’s income from medical fees between 2000 and 2002 is likely to have tallied some half a million liri, as alleged by St Philip’s Hospital’s chief executive Dr Frank Portelli, himself a former Nationalist MP.
In a candid interview with MaltaToday, Portelli says he will be standing by his statement, independent investigations by this newspaper support the allegation.
Buhagiar served as a Labour parliamentary secretary between 1996 and 1998, and as an MP until 2003, when he became the focus of an extensive reportage on his overcharging spree.
Buhagiar, a medical consultant, was suspended from St Philip’s Hospital – according to Dr Frank Portelli he had brought the private hospital into disrepute.
Earlier this year, Louis Buhagiar was awarded Lm4,000 in damages by the courts in a libel case he instituted against MaltaToday, claiming news reports on his overcharging were incorrect. The newspaper had presented all documents and evidence to substantiate its case, and has now appealed the sentence.
Dr Frank Portelli has also asked the Speaker of the House of Representatives to investigate Prof. Buhagiar’s financial declarations as an MP. The Speaker has informed Portelli the investigation is not in his remit.
“It was the day I received a tax bill of Lm300 related to my father, a pensioner who had passed away 15 years ago,” Portelli said about what had spurned him to raise the Buhagiar issue now.
In the interview Portelli also talks of his days as a politician and MP between 1987 and 1992 and the violent period of the 80s under a Labour government, and his views of the PN today.
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