The PN will send a cheque to Keith Schembri at the Auberge de Castille tomorrow, settling the outstanding amounts owed to his companies, but also underlining the conflict of interest which the chief of staff at the Office of the prime minister has in still being involved in business, Simon Busuttil said this morning.

Speaking at a Radio 101 interview, Dr Busuttil said people were getting disheartened of politics because of the prime minister's lack of effective action over the Panama scandals.

People were not only disgusted by the prime minister's lack of action, but also frustrated by the way he insulted their intelligence.

Dr Busuttil said that he was drawing a line on the past,  including former PN governments, where mistakes were made, but the PN also did a lot to be proud of.

A new PN government would certainly be different from the present government where the prime minister did not act over the Panama papers and he even tarnished politics and ridiculed the country - such as going to a London conference to speak about corruption.

Dr Busuttil said it was a shame that Keith Schembri, the prime minister's chief of staff, first claimed he had cut off his business interests, and then threatened first Times of Malta and now the Nationalist Party, over money owed to his company Kasco.

This was a clear conflict of interest by the top official in the OPM but the Nationalist Party would not be intimidated.

Dr Busuttil said that in the week when Parliament debated a motion against Mr Schembri, the Nationalist Party received an official letter demanding payment for the money it owed Kasco for the purchase of newsprint (€121,000) by its former printing press (closed three years ago).

He had issued instructions for the outstanding amounts to be paid tomorrow. The cheque would be address to Mr Schembri at the Auberge de Castille. 

"You will not scare us, Mr Schembri. You lied when you said you had given control of your business interests, but we do not need you and we are not scared of you," Dr Busuttil said.

The Opposition leader said Malta now had a situation where the law was not equal to all. It was something which taxpayers should reflect on when they filed their tax declaration and accounted for every cent their earned while other people stashed their money in Panama.

On the court's decision to allocate two MPs to the PN after mistakes made in the vote-counting process, Dr Busuttil said it was a shame that this case took three years to be decided. Were he prime minister, he would had immediately abided by this decision, because it was important for the country.