The Giovanna Debono case is one that reflects bad political judgement by the Opposition leader and the PN general secretary, Labour president Daniel Micallef said today.

The case revolves around claims by three contractors that they were told by the minister's husband to carry out private works for constituents which were then meant to be paid for by the ministry. Mrs Debono and her husband have both denied the claims.  

Mr Micallef insisted the email published yesterday by Malta Today clearly showed PN General Secretary Chris Said knew of the "works for votes" scam because the Gozitan contractor had told him about it.

He said Simon Busuttil could not escape the fact that he knew about the scam some months after becoming leader of the PN in 2013.

PL chief executive Gino Cauchi descibed this as a political scandal without precedent and accused Dr Busuttil of evading the media.

Mr Cauchi said it made no sense for Dr Busuttil to claim he only got to know of the damning email last Friday.

He insisted the PN had to come clean on the matter and explain why Dr Busuttil and Dr Said did nothing about the case when they learnt about it.

"Instead of taking the case to the police Dr Said told the contractor that he will help him all he could," Mr Cauchi said.

When asked why Gozo Minister Anton Refalo had kept the facts of the case to himself despite having known about them in November last year, Mr Cauchi said the minister put into motion the whistleblower procedures.

"When Anton Refalo became aware of the case he referred to the whistleblower to the civil service office that deals with whistleblowers. The office investigates the case and when it is established that the case warrants whistleblower protection it forwards the case to the police. This procedure takes its time."

Mr Cauchi said the process was speeded up when the police acted after the media outed the details.

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