Saliba won't comment on whether Pullicino Orlando lied to the party

The general secretary of the Nationalist Party, Joe Saliba would not comment on whether Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando told the truth or withheld information from the party when Labour dropped its Spin Valley bombshell in the last week of the election campaign.

Mr Saliba did say, however, that he would still have made the same decisions he made at the time had he been in possession of the information he has now.

Mr Saliba's statement comes in the wake of Dr Pullicino Orlando's outright denial that he had lied to the party, itself a reaction to press reports suggesting otherwise.

"I told the party about all the facts that had to do with me," he told The Times, stressing, when asked whether he had lied: "Absolutely not... not to the party, not to the people."

As the case continued to unravel in the past weeks, a number of reports and statements surfaced, suggesting that Dr Pullicino Orlando had held back significant information from the party when Labour launched its attack. A fact, the theory went, that explains the support given to him by the party.

Lawrence Gonzi had told the PBS current affairs programme Dissett right after the election: "What I found out was about the contract that was made public... I knew that there was some informal agreement, that was the description, but I didn't have all the details..."

Contacted yesterday, Mr Saliba said he would prefer not to comment at this stage on the matter. "I don't feel I should make public what was discussed between us," he said.

The case, which pivots on an outline development permit given irregularly by the Development Control Commission for an open-air disco on ecologically-sensitive land belonging to Dr Pullicino Orlando, has unravelled, since Labour first made its allegations, into a conundrum involving both the Malta Environment and Planning Authority and the Malta Tourism Authority.

After a damning report by the Mepa auditor, it was reported in different news media that charges could be made in connection with the case once the pending police investigations are concluded.

In fact, in light of the information that has surfaced since March 8 on this case, questions are being raised about the endorsement that the party, and in particular Mr Saliba, had given Dr Pullicino Orlando when he gate-crashed Alfred Sant's press conference scheduled by the Broadcasting Authority as part of the electoral campaign, for instance.

"I was working to win a general election. I was only working to have the Nationalist Party win the election," Mr Saliba replied to this point, adding, when asked whether this meant that the party knew Dr Pullicino Orlando was wrong and defended him just the same: "Don't put words in my mouth. I won't say what I knew or what I didn't know. Some day it will emerge but at this stage I don't think one should speak...

"It seems to me that the Labour Party did not have a strategy," he continued, "... they found a card in the end and at that stage Alfred Sant didn't have proof that what he was saying was the case. This is a fact and I didn't want the party to lose the election or risk losing an election against a party that did not have a strategy but only resorted to mudslinging."

The point of what is being said now, however, is that, at least aspects of what Dr Sant was saying then were not mudslinging. Still on this point, Mr Saliba insisted: "Today, retrospectively, I would do the same thing because the Labour Party did not deserve to win the election without a strategy. It didn't have a strategy throughout the campaign. It only had this issue, irrespective of whether it's true or not... My job was to see to it that together with others we win the general election," Mr Saliba said.

Asked whether he has a position on the issue today, he said he had one but felt it was not his duty to state it publicly at this point.

The MLP said yesterday the claim by Dr Pullicino Orlando that he did not lie to the PN about the Mistra development made it necessary for the Prime Minister to declare what he really knew before the general election and how he retained Dr Pullicino Orlando on the party list.

The MLP said Dr Gonzi also needed to explain who would shoulder political responsibility for the irregularities that had taken place at Mepa over the past few years. On the Mistra case alone, the Mepa auditor had declared that not only should the outline development permit never have been issued but added that, in such circumstances, accusations of corruption were inevitable and difficult to counter.

The MLP pointed out that it was now also being alleged that a senior official in George Pullicino's ministry had been involved in the pressure brought to bear for the permit to be issued.

This took place when Mr Pullicino had been politically responsible for Mepa.

Therefore, Mr Pullicino too had a duty to explain what he knew about the case and what he had done to stop the permit from being issued.

The MLP said the Prime Minister could no longer put partisan interests first as he had done before the election.

In its reaction, the government claimed that the MLP was attempting to influence police investigations.

Through a Department of Information statement, the government said the Prime Minister will not be commenting on the case until the investigations are completed.

On his part, Minister for Resources and Rural Affairs George Pullicino denied that any official from his secretariat had ever talked to or brought pressure to bear on Mr Micallef.