Updated - Adds PN reaction - The Labour Party has cast doubt on Simon Busuttil's claim that the tenders his legal firm won over the past five years were on the basis of competence.
"The claim has to be taken with more than a pinch of salt," Justice Parliamentary Secretary Owen Bonnici said during a press conference at Labour headquarters this afternoon.
Dr Bonnici said the payments Dr Busuttil had received from the previous Nationalist administration covered consultancies for the design of "a pig farms restructuring scheme" and research for the "setting up of a wine bar".
"We have a very intelligent Opposition leader who is knowledgeable in many things," Dr Bonnici said sarcastically.
Dr Bonnici said the issue was not whether the Opposition leader had committed a crime but whether he was credible in his criticism of the government.
This was a reaction to Dr Busuttil's comment earlier today in which he challenged the Prime Minister to go to the police with any claims of impropriety.
"This is a man who spent a whole year undermining institutions, criticising and insulting people who are working with the government when his company had received €1.1 million from the PN government over the past five years," he said.
Labour Party president Daniel Micallef asked the Opposition leader to come clean and say whether there were any more payments that his company had received.
PN REACTION
In a reaction, the PN said the prime minister preferred to throw mud instead of asking the police commissioner to investigate. He did not want the full truth to emerge since it would not suit him.
He was trying to distract attention to make the people forget that the country had in a year been made Labour's only.
The PN recalled that Dr Muscat was the first prime minister who was renting his personal car to himself. He had not justified the jobs he awarded the wife of the energy minister at €13,000 a month, or the €60,000 job awarded to his wife's friend in New York.