The Nationalist Party has called on the Prime Minister to publish Sai Mizzi Liang's contract after Dr Muscat told The Sunday Times of Malta that appointing  the Energy Minister’s wife to be the government’s envoy for Asia could have been better handled.

“I’m the first to admit we’re not perfect. But what is certain is that we now have the results in hand, I credit Sai Mizzi with the success of a substantial part of this visit,” Dr Muscat said at the end of his six-day trip to China.

Ms Mizzi Liang last week denied claims that she is paid €13,000 monthly. The controversy about her appointment and pay had raged for months.

"We wanted to confront this issue when we had concrete results in hand, which we do now,” Dr Muscat said.

He added that while Ms Mizzi Liang had agreed to provide her payslip, her allowances were those of any other ambassador.

“The Opposition’s criticism that she was the minister’s wife is legitimate; it’s normal to question whether she got the job simply because she’s Konrad Mizzi’s wife. But for me that’s the issue, not her salary,” Dr Muscat added.

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PN REACTION

In its reaction, the PN said that after months of silence, the prime minister had admitted that the way how the appointment was made was mistaken.

He had also admitted that the PN criticism was justified.

The PN recalled that when, months ago, it criticised this appointment, and many others, it argued that this broke the PL promise of meritocracy.

The government had ignored public opinion for a year by failing to publish Ms Mizzi's contract, also ignoring all promises of transparency made before the election. The PL was hiding it because it was ashamed to admit that Ms Mizzi had a financial package amounting to €13,000 a month.

PN said it was challenging the prime minister to publish the contract in the interests of the people's right to known.