In the article entitled ‘Ian Borg explains funding of controversial Rabat property’ (May 2), the Times of Malta reported that Pierre Sladden carried out works on my property.

It also states that “the €34,000 invoice was paid in 2016 following the emergence of Mr Sladden’s name in the Panama Papers”.

For correctness sake, it must be pointed out that my wife and I paid Sladden within one month from the issue of the invoice.

The invoice covered works carried out from time to time on the same property till 2015.

It must be noted that an invoice is not issued by the client but by the service provider, with the service provider in this case being Sladden’s company.

A fiscal receipt of payment has also been issued and received.

Incidentally, Sladden’s company was one of over 20 different contractors that carried out work on my property over the last few years. These ranged from builders, plasterers, aperture installers, carpenters etc.

Each contractor was paid for the work executed. Not one single contractor, not even Sladden, has ever claimed he was not paid for the work carried out or that I expected the work to be carried out for free.

It is the Labour Party, and the Labour Party only, that is desperately trying to spin facts, saying that the works carried out by Sladden – which are paid for – were a gift.

I have worked hard all my life as a lawyer to be independent of politics and not dependent on it. Thankfully, my declared income, which the Times of Malta has access to, more than sufficiently enables me to pay my dues.