Minister’s wife does customer care: ‘Entirely Refalo’s choice’ says minister

Tourism minister Edward Zammit Lewis has defended Gozo Minister Anton Refalo’s decision to have his wife working as a customer care official in the Gozo minister as “entirely his own choice”.

Refalo’s wife Mikelina is a civil servant who was brought into the ministry’s customer care unit, ostensibly to work close to Refalo’s own secretariat.

“Whether this is right or wrong is up to your own judgement,” Zammit Lewis said.

The minister and Labour MP Deborah Schembri were addressing a press conference rebutting reports in the PN media of road-surfacing works carried out by the Gozo ministry for a constituent.

The reports come at a time when former Nationalist minister for Gozo Giovanna Debono’s husband Anthony, a civil servant who headed the projects division at the Gozo ministry, is being charged in court with having used the ministerial budget to fund private constituents’ construction works.

Schembri said that Refalo’s wife had been employed by the ministry since 1991. “Although it is perhaps time to review the way things are done and the way standards are measured, the two cases cannot be compared to each other.”

On his part, Zammit Lewis challenged PN deputy leader for party affairs Beppe Fenech Adami – who yesterday demanded that police investigate Anton Refalo – to come forward with any substantial proof of the stories alleging the misappropriation of public funds for works under the current Gozo minister.

“I challenge Fenech Adami to come forward with the proof he claims to have, or alternatively to urge the witness to make use of the Whistleblower Act,” Zammit Lewis said.

Yesterday the government replied to Fenech Adami’s allegations saying a concrete road built in private fields in Nadur using public funds, had actually started in 2002 under Giovanna Debono, and while outgoing PN secretary-general Chris Said was mayor. Zammit Lewis added that the works had also spilled over into Said’s brother Charles’s time as a mayor of the same locality.

Zammit Lewis also said the government and the Labour party had no influence over whether a police investigation should take place on the case.

Schembri also accused the PN of lying about the knowledge it had of the claims of a contractor who carried out works at Anthony Debono’s behest, only to be left out of pocket when the Nationalist government was not elected in 2013. “The PN needs to shoulder much more responsibility for this case… PN leader Simon Busuttil has not only failed to fire Debono from the party, but he expressed his disappointment at her resignation from the party.”