The case of Franco Mercieca’s waiver was “used” by people who wanted to project themselves as being “whiter than white”, the Prime Minister said yesterday.
Asked to comment on the parliamentary secretary’s decision to stop doing private eye operations, Joseph Muscat referred to an “ex-minister” who, he said, did private consultancy while part of Cabinet. He would not name the person.
An investigation by The Sunday Times of Malta found that Mr Mercieca was breaching the ‘limited waiver’ granted to him by the Prime Minister when he continued privately performing non-specialised eye operations, such as cataracts and laser eye corrections.
The ministerial code of ethics bars ministers and parliamentary secretaries from doing any private work, even if unpaid.
The Prime Minister said Mr Mercieca’s decision to immediately halt his private practice was “a wise decision”.
This declaration did not satisfy the Nationalist Party, which said that Dr Muscat should have fired the surgeon.
Despite calls by the Opposition in Parliament to make a statement following The Sunday Times of Malta report, Dr Muscat declared he had nothing else to say on the case.
Times of Malta yesterday reported that the Prime Minister and Mr Mercieca had met about the matter and, as a result, the parliamentary secretary decided to immediately stop his private practice and to only continue with limited specialised operations at Mater Dei Hospital free of charge.
This newspaper confirmed that Mr Mercieca has cancelled a number of operations that were scheduled to take place last Wednesday at St James Hospital.
When asked about the issue during a visit to insurance agency All Care in Msida, Dr Muscat said that as there seemed to be a misunderstanding on the waiver, Mr Mercieca’s decision was “wise”.
The code of ethics, which is being revised, does not make provision for waivers.
Dr Muscat said that a document in his possession showed a former Cabinet minister had been doing private consultancy work with a State agency. Pressed to say who it was, the Prime Minister refused but added he would do so at the “appropriate time.”
The PN felt Mr Mercieca should have been sacked, once he had been “caught red-handed” breaching the waiver.
Referring to the sacking of former Labour Party deputy leader Anġlu Farrugia a few weeks before the election, the PN said the manner in which Mr Mercieca was handled was “yet another shocking case of two weights and two measures by the Muscat Administration”.
“Joseph Muscat fired competent people from important posts to appoint his chosen few but chooses to defend at all costs a member of his Cabinet who breached the code of ethics – with his approval,” the PN charged.
Mr Mercieca is the only member of Cabinet known to have been granted such a waiver by the Prime Minister to perform specialised operations, known as phakic implants and cornea cross-linking operations.
Other ophthalmologists, including the chairman of Mater Dei’s Ophthalmology Department, Thomas Fenech, publicly disputed Mr Mercieca’s claims.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said yesterday that Mr Mercieca understood the waiver as allowing him to continue holding routine operations, since stopping them altogether would create a backlog for patients.