Simon Busuttil said yesterday he was never told of the “works for votes” scam despite a meeting two years ago with the contractor making the allegations.

The Nationalist Party leader said he met Gozitan contractor Joe Cauchi, the whistleblower in this case, in 2013 but the alleged scam was never mentioned to him.

“When Mr Cauchi met me, just two months after I was elected party leader, his complaint was that he was still awaiting payment for work carried out as a contractor during the previous administration,” Dr Busuttil said when asked about this meeting.

The meeting happened a full year before Mr Cauchi raised the allegations in an email to PN secretary general Chris Said.

The scam allegedly happened under the watch of former Gozo minister Giovanna Debono and implicated her husband, Anthony, who was responsible for the ministry’s construction department.

Dr Busuttil insisted the email the contractor sent Dr Said, which was published in Malta Today last Sunday, was not sent or copied to him.

“No information was passed on to me about the allegations you mention [the works for votes scam],” he said.

The PN leader provided this newspaper with the email exchange he had with Mr Cauchi in 2013. The first email is a request by Mr Cauchi to meet Dr Busuttil – no mention is made of the allegations – and the second is the PN leader’s response that his secretary will be arranging an appointment.

Dr Busuttil said that from time to time he has had the occasion to meet contractors who asked to see him about outstanding dues for public works following the change of administration. “None of these meetings ever raised the allegations that have surfaced now.”

He also denied being privy to the scam prior to the 2013 election.

On Sunday, Dr Busuttil told this newspaper he only got to know of the contents of Mr Cauchi’s email to Dr Said last Friday.

However, during a press conference on Saturday, Dr Said only mentioned that part of the email in which Mr Cauchi was complaining about public works done for the Għarb council for which he was not paid. The secretary general omitted the part in which Mr Cauchi alleged construction work was done in private residences utilising public funds, a system he described as “works for votes”.

No explanation has so far been given as to why Dr Said said nothing about the scam during Saturday’s press conference and did nothing about it when he received the email in May 2014. It appears the secretary general had not informed Dr Busuttil of the allegations.

Dr Busuttil insisted he will wait for the outcome of the police investigation before taking action when asked whether Dr Said’s position in the party was tenable.

But he yesterday defended the secretary general when asked the relevance of waiting for the police to conclude their investigation when Dr Said’s shortcomings were of a political and ethical nature not criminal: “Both the secretary general and I have already replied to this question. The real problem here is that we have a Prime Minister and a Minister [Anton Refalo] who knew about these allegations since last year and instead of taking action concealed them for the sole reason of using them during an election campaign.

“This is not just unethical but hugely irresponsible and it is their position that is untenable.”

Gozo Minister Anton Refalo was yesterday unavailable for comment because he had been hospitalised.

Questions sent to the Office of the Prime Minister as to why the allegations were not forwarded to the police in November 2014, when Dr Refalo became aware of them remained unanswered by the time of writing.

However, during a press conference organised by the Labour Party, chief executive Gino Cauchi said the minister had acted according to the provisions of the Whistleblower Act (see separate story).

Refalo referred case to whistleblower office – Labour

Gozo Minister Anton Refalo kick-started procedures in the Whistleblower Act when he learnt of the “works for votes” scam, according to Labour Party CEO Gino Cauchi.

Mr Cauchi said the minister had referred the case to the whistleblower office of the civil service when the allegations reached him in November of last year. The Nationalist Party has replied to accusations that it did nothing about the scam by saying that Dr Refalo had kept the facts hidden, to be used during an election campaign.

But Mr Cauchi, who yesterday addressed a press conference with PL president Daniel Micallef, insisted the whistleblower office carried out its own investigation to verify the allegations. “When it is established that the case warrants whistleblower protection, it forwards the matter to the police and this procedure takes its time,” Mr Cauchi said.

He insisted the whistleblower office had not yet concluded its probe when the allegations were published in Malta Today earlier this month, which prompted the police to take action.

Mr Cauchi described the scam as “a political scandal without precedent”.

The Labour exponents insisted that the latest developments put into question the political judgement of Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil and secretary general Chris Said.

Mr Micallef said that the PN’s top brass had to explain why they had not gone to the police when the facts of the case had come to be known.

kurt.sansone@timesofmalta.com