PN urges police to take action on alleged breaches in Gozo

Shadow Justice Minister Jason Azzopardi urged the police commissioner to investigate alleged cases of public workers carrying out works on private properties in the past couple of years.

“If the law is indeed equal for all of us, then the public should be told what stage investigations around current Gozo Minister Anton Refalo, have got to, if they have started at all,” Azzopardi said at a press conference earlier today.

Referring to cases reported on the Nationalist newspaper and on MaltaToday, Azzopardi criticised the police for not disclosing what investigations had revealed.  Among the stories Azzopardi mentioned were the cases of restoration at Il Gambero Ristorante, works in privately owned fields in the limits of Ghasri, works on private properties in Kercem and Xaghra, works carried out in a property owed by a canvasser for Anton Refalo, works at a farmhouse in Munxar, works at two garages in Rabat as well as works at a number of garages in San Lawrenz.

Referring to the highly publicized case of alleged misappropriation of public funds by former Gozo minister Giovanna Debono’s husband, Azzopardi stressed that investigations into all these serious allegations needed to be made as rigorously, to show that the law treated everyone equally.

Addressing the media, opposition candidate for the upcoming general election Alessia Psaila Zammit, questioned what Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was doing about these issues.

“When the case of Giovanna Debono’s husband had emerged, Muscat had made sure that the police investigated the allegations straight away and he used to mention it every chance he got, but now Muscat seems to have forgotten about the allegations about Anton Refalo,” she said.

Psaila Zammit then reminded the media of the various cases where Muscat defended abuses of power rather than fighting it. She listed cases including former home affairs minister Manuel Mallia giving his wife citizenship ahead of the stipulated period and the case where social dialogue minister Helena Dalli had carried out illegal works in a farmhouse she owned a few metres  away from her residence among other prominent cases.