Foreign Minister Carmelo Abela said on Wednesday that it was his wife, after a conversation with a childhood friend, who suggested that a carpenter employed by his ministry should be engaged to carry out works at his home in 2015.
He insisted he had paid for the job, done after office hours, and that an internal investigation had confirmed there was no wrongdoing.
The minister, who was speaking in Parliament, tabled a receipt for the materials used. (See pdf below)
Mr Abela was replying to questions by Nationalist MP Simon Busuttil in the wake of a report in the The Sunday Times of Malta. The newspaper had reported how the work - the building of a wooden verandah on the roof of the minister's home - was carried out when Mr Abela was Minister of Home Affairs. The worker was an employee of the same ministry as a carpenter.
Dr Busuttil said that even if the minister had paid for everything, the fact that he had engaged a worker from his own ministry to do private work was already wrong.
'Wife's childhood friend'
Mr Abela said the suggestion to use the services of the ministry's carpenter had come from a childhood friend of the family, who was the supervisor of the carpenter in question, and it had arisen during a casual discussion on household affairs between his wife and the friend in question.
He had agreed with his wife's suggestion to ask the worker to do the job, after seeking a quotation.
The worker was never ordered to do the work and he had carried out the job on a Saturday, which was not a working day. The materials were delivered in an afternoon after office hours, he insisted.
The cost of materials was €372. The worker did not seek payment for himself but the minister said he insisted on paying him and he had included an additional sum over and above the cost of the materials.
He tabled receipts for the €372.
Mr Abela said that since the newspaper report also said that senior Home Affairs Ministry officials had known of the case, the head of the civil service had ordered an investigation.
The investigation was carried out by the director-general at the Home Affairs Ministry who concluded that senior ministry officials had not known about the works.
The investigation showed one government worker was engaged by the minister for works at his home, but he had worked after hours on a Saturday.
No overtime was paid to the employee and no public funds were used for materials and transport. The work on the verandah was not prepared on government property.
Reacting, Dr Busuttil said that while the minister had tabled a receipt for materials, he had not tabled receipts, including a fiscal receipt, for payment to the employee.
Mr Abela said the government was not involved in any way in the works and when the works were completed, he had requested the receipts for the payment made.
Attached files
Attached files