PN in all-round defence of Arrigo

The Nationalist Party, including the Prime Minister, yesterday defended MP Robert Arrigo against an allegation that he had put pressure on the Sliema council to keep his former driver whom it had dismissed as its contracts manager.

Mr Arrigo also denied the allegation, first made by former mayor Nikki Dimech and later corroborated by Nationalist councillor Yves Bobby Calì.

This week Mr Calì denied he made the allegation but The Times published a transcript of an interview in which, when he was asked whether Mr Arrigo insisted that the council employs his people, Mr Calì said: “Of course...”

“Robert Arrigo has categorically denied this and it is not fair to turn allegations into facts,” Lawrence Gonzi said when asked whether such behaviour by an MP was acceptable.

He was fielding questions during a press conference held to launch the Whistleblower Act and new legislation to strengthen the Commission Against Corruption.

Dr Gonzi’s terse reply was also reflected in similar ones received from Nationalist Party general secretary Paul Borg Olivier.

“Mr Arrigo is a serving MP, carrying out his duties as an MP towards his constituents,” Dr Borg Olivier said when asked whether the party would investigate the allegations.

The general secretary stood by the party’s declaration earlier this week when it took Mr Calì’s word that he never made the allegations, insisting that the transcript published by this newspaper was “not faithful to the statement of clarification made by Mr Calì”.

The transcript of a 14-minute telephone interview with Mr Calì, carried out last week, tells a different story however.

“You cannot come and impose, ‘these people are mine and you have to put them in’, as though you’re the only one in Sliema,” Mr Calì told The Times, alluding to the way Mr Arrigo dealt with the council.

The interview revolved around a claim made by Mr Dimech under police interrogation: that Mr Arrigo had asked the council to favour “his people” for jobs and tried to persuade the then mayor not to sack the contracts manager, Stephen Buhagiar.

When asked for his side of the story Mr Calì told The Times that overall, Mr Dimech was correct in his claim.

Asked if he felt uncomfortable with this kind of “interference,” Mr Calì said: “Not uncomfortable. He was insisting... like he did with Nikki. And I’m not that kind of person, I’m sorry...”

Mr Arrigo yesterday reiterated his denial when asked about the matter, insisting he never asked anybody to put his people in.

He pointed out that Mr Buhagiar did not apply at the Sliema council for a normal job but submitted a bid after the council issued a public call for tenders for a contracts manager.

Mr Arrigo insisted Mr Buhagiar bid for the tender “months after” he left the MP’s company.

“Contrary to the impression that might have been given, I could have never possibly exerted any pressure of any sort, or interfered with a tender.

“Nor did I exert any pressure on any of the PN councillors before, during or after the duration of the tender, or in any of the council’s decisions,” Mr Arrigo said.

Confirming that he had “great support” from his party’s “topmost leadership”, Mr Arrigo said he was honoured to serve his constituents and “will continue to serve them with the same vigour and attention” as he has done “daily for the past years”.