Updated with PL statement at 1.45pm

The Crane Currency deal was yet another instance where the Prime Minister was an accomplice with his chief of staff Keith Schembri in another case of clear conflict of interest, Nationalist deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said today.

Mr Schembri was present at the signing of the deal in Boston, the US, last week and the Prime Minister had described him as “the catalyst in making sure that things got done”.

Addressing a news conference this morning, Dr Fenech Adami said Dr Muscat’s decision to appoint Mr Schembri as his chief of staff, despite his so many commercial interests, was a bad one from the very beginning.

Together with Minister Konrad Mizzi, Mr Schembri had set up a secret company in Panama.

Dr Fenech Adami asked when talks between the Office of the Prime Minister and Crane Currency had started, who was involved, Mr Schembri’s role in the deal and when did he get involved.

The people, he said, had good reason to suspect in anything Mr Schembri was involved in.

Asked if the Police Commissioner should look into the possibility of Mr Schembri using his public position for personal gain, Dr Fenech Adami said such a case surely deserved to be investigated.

However, he expressed doubts this would ever happen especially since the police had refused to look into the Panama Papers scandal.

He accused Mr Schembri of "playing with words" and acting in a "disrespectful" manner towards the people.

"He won't store the equipment being imported by the American company in his warehouse, but the bottom line is that as sole agent for the machines his company will get commissions," he said.

Shadow Minister Jason Azzopardi said that all those who were serious knew there existed a massive conflict of interest in the Crane Currency deal.

This was a case where, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff was negotiating a deal with a private company which could lead him - in his role as a shareholder of a private company, to get commissions.

Dr Azzopardi said it was obvious that the Prime Minister was lying when he said he did not have an idea what Mr Schembri was doing.

It was a shame, he said, that a story which should have had a positive ending had ended up blurred with serious accusations of conflict of interest by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.

PL statement

In a statement, the Labour Party said that Opposition leader Simon Busuttil’s bitter attack on the Crane Currency investment was due to his politics of desperation.

The positive results being experienced by Maltese families and businesses were too much for the PN leader, who could not accept the fact that the country was successful and tried to put spokes in the wheels.

The government, the PL said, would continue to work to attract investment and make Malta the best country in Europe.