Three public officers who are at the centre of a political storm for allegedly leaking information to the Opposition, in a joint statement this evening denied any wrongdoing.

Chris Pace, Keith Zahra and Carlos Camenzuli said the only thing they had done was to give their opinions. They had commented and discussed matters which were in the public domain, as any private person could.  

The public officers urged politicians not to continue to accuse them of things they had not done, using adjectives were were unbecoming.

They said they had always worked in the interests of the country and the fact that accusations were being made against then publicly could prejudice the investigative process.  

They urged the institutions they work for to conclude their investigations as quickly as possible.  

Earlier today, Labour deputy leader Toni Abela and MP Charles Mangion said some of the people involved had written statements for the Nationalist Party.

Dr Mangion asked why Tonio Fenech, when he was shadow minister for finance, had met Michael Pace Ross, then head of the National Statistics Office to discuss the expiration of his contract.

He asked if Mr Fenech had had other meetings during which he was given information in breach of government directives on impartiality.  

A number of e-mails, Dr Mangion said, showed a discussion on the classification of government corporations and also matters involving  Mediterranean Bank and Volksbank, which matters were never public.

Dr Abela criticsed Opposition leader Simon Busuttil for defending such people.

In a reaction, the PN said it was defending these workers from a systematic attack being made against them only because they did not agree with the government.

This, it said, was a case of discrimination. All workers, it insisted, had a right to associate with any political party they liked.