The Nationalist Party insisted once more this afternoon that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat should explain how he was  tackling the scandal on the granting of residence permits, revealed when Joe Sammut was arraigned.

PN Deputy Leader Beppe Fenech Adami said it was the prime minister who had appointed the chairman of Identity Malta, Joe Vella Bonnici, under whose watch the irregularities took place.

The prime minister had yet to explain how the former Pl treasurer had weaved a network of institutional corruption in a number of government departments, notably Identity Malta.

Dr Fenech Adami said it seemed that Mr Vella Bonnici, a former Labour candidate, was more intent on seeing all of his family employed by the government than stopping this institutional corruption.

Was action being taken to identify those who were allegedly living in Malta irregularly? Had action been taken to rescind the hundreds, and possibly thousands of residence permits allegedly issued illegally?

That Dr Muscat was hiding led one to wonder whether he wanted to fight corruption, Dr Fenech Adami said.