Labour Deputy Leader Toni Abela yesterday launched another attack on three public officers accusing them of disloyalty and of harming the interests of the government.
At the same time, he said that Labour was not putting any pressure on the Central Bank, the National Statistics Office and the Malta Financial Services Centre to fire the three employees, adding the party trusted their independence.
Addressing a press conference, Dr Abela criticised the PN for defending these public employees who he said had divulged sensitive information in a Google group assisting the then finance shadow minister Tonio Fenech.
Asked whether, through his press conference, he was indirectly exerting pressure on the independent authorities, Dr Abela said he was just replying to the insinuations made by the PN, that the employees were victims of discrimination.
Officials should stay away from expressing political bias
Labour MP Charles Mangion said the three employees were also breaching a directive of the Public Service Management Code which stated that officials should stay away from expressing political bias.
Asked to specify what type of sensitive information these three employees were being accused of divulging, Dr Mangion said they were discussing on their e-mail account information on the future takeovers of certain banks. He mentioned Volksbank as an example.
In a statement last night, the three officials again denied any wrongdoing.
Chris Pace, Keith Zahra and Carlos Camenzuli said the only thing they had done was to give their opinions. They had commented and discussed matters which were in the public domain, as any private person could.
They urged politicians not to continue to accuse them of things they had not done, using adjectives that were unbecoming.
They said they had always worked in the interests of the country and the fact that accusations were being made against then publicly could prejudice the investigative process.
They urged the institutions they work for to conclude their investigations as quickly as possible.