Muscat unrelenting on Gozoworks, says Busuttil must ‘come clean’

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has challenged Opposition leader Simon Busuttil to come clean on the extent of his knowledge of construction works being carried out for constituents that were paid for by the Gozo ministry budget under the former administration.

Muscat laid into the Opposition for having kept under wraps its knowledge that Anthony Debono, the husband of former Nationalist minister for Gozo Giovanna Debono, had commissioned contractors to carry out private works for constituents, which he paid out of the ministerial budget.

“PN secretary-general Chris Said was aware of an email from the whistleblower demanding payment for these works… he only admitted it after Simon Busuttil said that he could have met the person in question; and all he could offer was a legalistic claim that doing works for votes did not necessarily imply an ‘abuse’.”

“Opposition leader Simon Busuttil thinks that Easter Sunday will make people forget about the ‘Gozoworks’ story… but he needs to come clean, when he says that he got to know about this email on Friday, and if he did, why did he allow Said not to come clean on the email. He should come clean and say why he is covering up for Chris Said and Giovanna Debono. These are standards that cannot be tolerated.”

Muscat paid tribute to his administration's economic management since taking office in 2013.

“Our country has made a turnaround,” Muscat said. “We have the IMF telling us that in the next five years we will be cancelling out our national debt. We are bringing in more revenue than spending.”

Muscat said that Malta was bound by EU rules to keep its deficit below 3% of the gross domestic product, and that it was this fiscal probity that allowed the administration to keep taxes low. “We have reduced the highest income tax rate to 25%. Much more is left to be done for middle-income earners and pensioners, part-timers, self-employed… these are issues yet to be dealt with.”

Malta was recently given an ‘A’ rating from Canadian rating agency DBRS, which noted that since 2007 the island’s competitiveness had been “undermined”. “They said Labour would not work. The Opposition leader used to talk about the ‘crisis of unemployment’ but today we have considerable job growth. We are truly on the right road,” Muscat said.”

Muscat’s administration recently reduced energy tariffs for businesses by 25% in the fulfilment of an electoral pledge on electricity prices, a move he said would contribute to industrial competitiveness.

The prime minister also paid tribute to residents in the south of the island, who had tolerated the burden of industrial development, having decommissioned the Marsa power plant in an important step towards improving the environmental health of the area.

“I’ve only recently got confirmation that the Malta-Italy energy interconnector has finally started working, and in the next few days the link will be officially functioning,” Muscat said. “This is part of our energy plan… keeping the interconnector, introduce LNG, and changing the way we think of energy.”

In a response, the PN accused Muscat and Gozo Minister Anton Refalo of having done nothing to tackle the alleged Gozo abuses, despite having known about them when they first emerged. They also reiterated that Busuttil and the Gozitan contractor hadn’t discussed the alleged ‘Gozoworks’ abuses during their meeting.

They rubbished Muscat’s credibility, noting his “personal interference” in the government’s €4.2 million ‘bailout’ of Café Premier, and his appointment of Cyrus Engerer as EU Sherpa despite him serving a suspended prison sentence. They also accused him of defending Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi after the latter had instructed Enemalta to hedge fuel with Azerbajiani company SOCAR.

“In his desperate attempt to point a finger at someone else, Muscat has not yet realized that his other four fingers are pointing right back at himself,” the PN said.