The Office of the Prime Minister this afternoon denied statements by Opposition leader Joseph Muscat that Dr Gonzi took eight months to ask the police to investigate an alleged attempt of bribery in a government tendering process.
The PL, however, said that the OPM statement lacked credibility.
The Office of the Prime Minister said that as explained by Dr Gonzi himself in Parliament this morning, Dr Gonzi only learnt of the allegation yesterday and immediately called the Commissioner of Police.
Early this afternoon, Dr Muscat said that it was disgraceful that the Prime Minister had asked the police to investigate a claim of bribery in a call for tenders eight months after the allegation was made.
Dr Muscat said at a hastily convened press conference that the Prime Minister had only called in the police after he raised the case in Parliament on Monday.
"An eight-month delay does not help to reveal the truth, such a delay does not help investigations," Dr Muscat said.
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said in parliament this morning that following questions raised by Dr Muscat on Monday, he had asked the Police Commissioner to investigate a claim made to an official of his office in September of somebody having asked money during the consideration of the call for tenders. The claim was referred to the Ministry of Finance, whose investigation did not reveal anything, Dr Gonzi said. The call for tenders was scrapped.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said later that the case involved the call for tenders for the privatisation of the superyacht facilities.
Dr Muscat in his press conference today said that in his speech on Monday, he had been referring to a number of cases and not just this one.
The Prime Minister had said the case was investigated by the Finance Ministry, but it had resulted from the comments by the Minister of Finance, that all he did was convene a meeting of the negotiating team. He told the members of the team about the allegation and they denied it, Dr Muscat said.
This, Dr Muscat said, was not enough. This was not seriousness, and the minister had not tabled the result of any investigation.
All this had happened, he said, while the country was still shocked from the findings of the Auditor-General in the BWSC power station extension case.
Asked for how long he had had this information and what he had done with it, Dr Muscat said he learnt about it well after the finance minister.
PL REACTION TO OPM'S COMMENTS
The Labour Party in a statement this evening said that the statement by the Office of the Prime Minister was not credible. Dr Gonzi wanted the people to believe that he did not know what was going on in his own office. He had confirmed that the allegation of attempted bribery was made to an official in his Office last September - yet it was being claimed that Dr Gonzi only learnt of the case yesterday.
If Dr Gonzi did not know what was going on in his office, one could only wonder how much he knew about what Maltese families were going through.
Furthermore, the OPM had said nothing on the investigations by the Finance Ministry and it had presented no report.