Mario Cutajar denies claims he framed a tax officer to force him to resign

Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar has “categorically” denied claims made by Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi in parliament on Tuesday, who alleged that Cutajar had a tax official arrested to force him to resign from his post.

Azzopardi claimed that in 2013, a former high-ranking tax officer was forced to resign after being arrested, detained and interrogated, ostensibly for refusing to heed Cutajar’s suggestion to step down from his role. He said that the public officer was detained in the evening, all night and into the morning. 

In a statement on Wednesday, Cutajar said that this was the third time Azzopardi had attempted to sully his name.

“In the first instance, I was accused of having abused my position by appointing a young man to a government board because he was related to me. As it transpired, the man just had the same surname as me. I did not know the person,” Cutajar said.

The second time, Cutajar said, Azzopardi had claimed he hired a family member as a person trust when he became Head of the Public Service despite a decision by the court to the contrary.

“The published facts have shown that the allegations by Azzopardi were far from the truth because the person was already an employee of the government and was brought in by the previous administration. Moreover, it must be said that she worked in the same ministry for which Azzopardi was in charge,” he said.

Cutajar said the other claims concerned public officials. “One was regarding the tampering of public examination marks allegedly on the orders of the prime minister. The other allegation of abuse dated back to before 2013 and involved a tax officer," he said.  

Cutajar said that in both cases, and in any other cases that may be brought up down the line, he did not contact or interfere directly or indirectly with the work of the police and the Police Commissioner.

“What Jason Azzopardi claimed in parliament is far from the truth,” Cutajar said.