Labour leader Joseph Muscat called on Claudio Grech, chairman of the government’s information agency, to choose between his job and his “frontline” role in the Nationalist Party.

“It is unacceptable that a person is in the counting hall in an election campaign taking care of the Nationalist Party’s data and also heads an agency that has all the personal data of Malta and Gozo,” Dr Muscat said in a political meeting at the Għaxaq Labour Party club.

Saying he had nothing against Mr Grech, Dr Muscat insisted that, should Mr Grech choose to remain fully active in the PN, he had to resign his post as head of the Malta Information Technology Agency.

A distinction had to be made between party and government to reassure the people that, in a digital age, there would be no abuse of personal data, he added.

Mr Grech later insisted he kept his duties as Mita chairman separate from any activities he was involved in. He said he did his utmost to fulfil his public duties in the IT sector in the country’s interest adding that the results spoke for themselves.

Also, he continued, Dr Muscat made a “fundamental mistake” in saying he had access to government data as this was only limited to those who had a technical need to such access. “I, as chairman, and the other directors don’t have this technical need and so don’t have access to any system,” he said.

During the event in Għaxaq, Dr Muscat also said he was “very worried” about allegations made by journalist Saviour Balzan who claimed he received a visit from Edgar Galea Curmi, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, before the election, giving him information about former Green party chairman Harry Vassallo that the police had on payment of VAT.

He expected Police Commissioner John Rizzo to react swiftly to these allegations as he did last week after The Times reported that the police had filed charges against Cyrus Engerer 10 days after he resigned from the Nationalist Party. Four days earlier, the police had arrested his father over drug allegations. “I’m worried about a situation which developed over a phone call that should never have taken place – even Mr Rizzo said it crossed the line – and that merits a public inquiry,” Dr Muscat said.

He was referring to a phone call Mr Galea Curmi made to Mr Rizzo, asking him to speak to Mr Engerer’s lawyer to explain the sequence of events in view of allegations that the case was politically motivated.

Dr Muscat said he was “disgusted” with the way people within the PN tried to use people’s private lives to denigrate them

He said that, on several occasions, he was presented with information about the private lives of people within the PN, which could have been used for a political advantage. However, he personally had always given instructions for such information not to be used. A line of “decency” between Maltese politics and personal life had to be dawn. “Those were, and still are, my standards,” Dr Muscat said.

The Labour Party had to be a symbol of the right of freedom of association and freedom of expression. “The party made mistakes in the past and paid for them dearly. I was embarrassed by some of these mistakes but they will never be repeated. We have to fight to make sure they don’t take place anymore,” he said. Turning to energy, Dr Muscat said the government’s decision to help out 62,000 individuals and 34,000 families with energy vouchers would only assist one fourth of families who were classified as vulnerable. “It’s food for thought that one fourth of families are classified as vulnerable after 23 years of government. If it’s acceptable for the Prime Minister to have this level of poverty, for me it’s not,” he said.

Referring to the Engerers’ cases, the PN pointed out that Dr Muscat thought he could use the courts and the police as a “political, partisan tool”. Dr Muscat tried to attribute to this government what the Labour Party was an experts at in the late 1980s when people walked into the police headquarters and suffered violence, the party said.

Instead of calling for an independent inquiry led by a judge, Dr Muscat wanted an inquiry panel that included PL representatives to interfere and continue manipulating Mr Rizzo’s clear statement that there was no interference or pressure from Mr Galea Curmi, the PN said. The Finance Ministry said 62,000 people would receive the special energy allowance after it carried out a study on the impact of inflation, a decision that showed the government’s sensitivity in helping families mostly in need.

Even though the study concluded that the inflation was not particularly higher than that of a country going through economic growth, the government still felt the need to help families that included people with a disability, looking for jobs, elderly and others, the ministry said.