Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee should “immediately” publish the government contract awarded to Henley & Partners to administer the citizenship scheme, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil insisted yesterday.
He was speaking during a Nationalist Party event in Senglea shortly after Speaker Anġlu Farrugia ruled that the PAC could ask the government to produce the contact.
Dr Farrugia then sent the issue back to the PAC to decide on the matter.
“We expect it to do what is expected from it and immediately publish the contract,” Dr Busuttil said, adding that the government’s reluctance to publish the contract – claiming it had been stopped by the court – raised suspicions about its relationship with Henley & Partners.
He said the Opposition would insist on the publication of the contract as well as the contract for the new power station.
Speaking during a European election campaign event in Senglea, he attacked Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for being in politics “to serve himself and those in the Labour Party’s inner core”.
“It seems that the Prime Minister is in politics not to serve but for himself.
“It’s always about him,” he said, noting that Dr Muscat had said these elections were about the two party leaders.
He stressed that this campaign was not about individual people but it was an election in which representatives would be elected to serve the country in the European Parliament.
As he urged people to vote for all the PN candidates, he reiterated that the party was starting from a 36,000 vote disadvantage.
But it would not give up and it would retain the realistic goal of electing a third seat.
PM: it will be scrutinised
The Prime Minister last night made a commitment that the contract would be subject to scrutiny.
In a statement, the Office of the Prime Minister said he had already committed himself to this several times in the past.
It said the Speaker’s ruling confirmed it was not an individual MP but the Public Accounts Committee that must ask for the contract’s publication.
“When the time comes for discussion and the request is made by the PAC, the government will publish the information with all the commercial reserves,” it said.