The Nationalist Party this evening insisted that ministers and parliamentary secretaries had paid back all that former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had said they would in Parliament on January 19, 2011.

It was replying to a statement issued by the Labour Party earlier today accusing PN leader Simon Busuttil of not having told the truth during the electoral campaign when he knew that the then ministers and parliamentary secretaries had not fully refunded the pay raises they had received.

The PL said that during the campaign, Dr Busuttil sought to hide the facts about the 'scandalous raise' the Nationalist ministers had been given.

Despite repeated questions, he did not publish information on what had been refunded. Now it had been revealed that the ministers and parliamentary secretaries received a total raise of €1.6m and only refunded €300,000, meaning they pocketed a raise of €1.3 million. 

This meant that the claim during the campaign that the raise had been refunded was a lie and Dr Busuttil knew this, the PL said.

It showed how he had not learnt anything from the way how the raise was given behind the people's back, while power and water tariffs were being raised for the people.

But the PN said this afternoon that even Prime Minister Joseph Muscat confirmed the payments on TVM's programme Dissett recently.

On January 1, 2011, ministers and parliamentary secretaries also stopped receiving their honoraria.

This, the PN said, meant that the PL's accusation was unfounded.

The Labour government was opting to continue playing the games it did in opposition rather than govern the country, it charged.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.