The government only announced the locations of the contentious American University in Cospicua and Żonqor to “distract” the public from more serious scandals, Opposition leader Simon Busuttil charged yesterday.
Speaking on Nationalist Party radio, Dr Busuttil described the government as a master of “manipulation, political spin and lies”.
Rather than answer questions about the latest scandals, the government preferred to avoid talking about pressing issues and instead announced new projects and developments, he said.
“This has been a hot summer for scandals. So many in fact, that as soon as a new one comes out people keep forgetting about the last one. We can’t allow this. These aren’t speculative cases, all these scandals are based on irrefutable facts.”
Dr Busuttil referred to the Gaffarena scandal and said Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had outright ignored his calls for the State expropriation of half a property in Valletta to be reversed.
He also questioned why action had not yet been taken on the Zammit police family scandal, which had seen then acting Commissioner Ray Zammit and his two sons – who were both police investigators at the time – involved in a “compromised” murder investigation” with links to undisclosed business interests.
This has been a hot summer for scandals. So many in fact, that as soon as a new one comes out people keep forgetting about the last one
The government, Dr Busuttil said, had also chosen not to speak out about the latest scandal, involving the former Labour Party treasurer Joe Sammut.
Mr Sammut was last week charged with money laundering and fraud in a visa application scam for more than 800 Libyans. The alleged scam saw Mr Sammut register companies with false stock declarations of more than €100,000 – enough to enable his Libyan clients to apply for residency.
Dr Busuttil said the government had not yet said whether these visas would be revoked and what was being done to insure against similar occurrences in the future.
“We still do not know to what extent the institutions were involved in this. What is clear is that Mr Sammut could not have pulled this off without help,” Dr Busuttil said, adding that the scam must have gone ahead with the authorities’ blessing.
Turning his attention back to the American University of Malta, Dr Busuttil said the government’s scaling down of construction outside of the development zone was only thanks to the strong criticism voiced by environmentalists, civil society and the Nationalist Party.
Nevertheless, Dr Busuttil said he was still concerned over the use of 18,000 square metres of ODZ land – even if this was much less than the 90,000 square metres originally envisaged.