The government has denied reports that a minister's wife called at the Office of the Prime Minister and took the prime minister to task for reducing her husband's salary.

The story was carried on Maltastar, the PL's news website.

"It is not true that a minister's wife, or anybody else, did what the Opposition has invented, neither on the day when the decision was announced, nor on any other day since," the government said.

The alleged incident is said to have occurred last Friday, when the Cabinet reshuffle was made and the prime minister announced that the ministers would no longer continue to receive their honoraria as MPs.

It was claimed that the woman complained that she and her husband had made commitments on a new house after the minister started receiving the honoraria in 2008.

In a reaction, Maltastar said its story, based on a rumour within the PN, did not say that the minister’s wife went into the Office of the Prime Minister at Castille. She went into the ministerial office of her husband. "Had maltastar wanted to say she went into the OPM it would have said so clearly. It did not. In fact it is very clear that the incident is rumoured to have happened in the office of the minister" the website said.