PN says direct orders awarded to Busuttil related to EU expertise

Contracts awarded to PN leader Simon Busuttil’s firm between 1999 and 2004 related to his services rendered in the run-up to the EU referendum, PN says

Simon Busuttil
Simon Busuttil

Accusing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of “throwing mud and spinning stories in order to deviate attention," the PN said that Simon Busuttil was only awarded contracts by previous governments in relation to his EU expertise.

Muscat’s accusations that opposition leader Simon Busuttil benefitted from a number of direct orders under previous Nationalist administrations “shows the low level of political standards to which the Prime Minister is able to descend,” a PN spokesperson said.

In comments to MaltaToday over contracts awarded to Busuttil’s firms, the PN shrugged off Muscat’s attempts to “throw mud at Dr Busuttil by using the services he rendered to the country in the run-up to EU membership” and pointed out that Muscat himself who served as an MEP and is now, as Prime Minister, a member of the European Council, “thanks to these services that Dr Busuttil rendered as a result of this contract.”

Yesterday, replies to a series of parliamentary questions revealed that a total of €49,015.56 were awarded by the Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure and its entities to Europa Research and Consultancy Services Ltd, of which Opposition leader Simon Busuttil was the founding director.

Contracts amounting to Lm82,144.13 between 1999 and 2004 were also awarded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs

Busuttil remained director of the said company until May 2013 when he was elected leader of the Nationalist Party.

The PN spokesperson explained that the contracts awarded to Busuttil’s firm between 1999 and 2004 related to his services rendered in the run-up to the 2003 EU referendum when he headed the Malta-EU Information Centre and was a member of Malta’s negotiating team.

“Whether he was amply competent to render this service is a judgement best left to the public, particularly those who voted in favour of EU membership. Suffice it to say, however, that for his part in Malta’s EU membership Dr Busuttil was awarded membership of the National Order of Merit in December 2003.”

The award of contracts to Busuttil’s consultancy firm has been at the heart of political debates in the past weeks following the leaders debate on Xarabank, with the leaders engaged in a row: Joseph Muscat has called Busuttil “a liar” while the latter has called Muscat “a Super One journalist”.

According to Muscat, Busuttil’s firm had taken some €412,000 in government contracts under the former administration, 25% of which had been direct orders.

The opposition also noted that Busuttil put his legal career aside when he was re-elected to the European Parliament in 2009 and said that questions related to other services rendered by Busuttil’s company “should be directed to the company itself.”