Bernard Grech says Prime Minister is held at ransom by his ministers: A government mired in fraud

Bernard Grech upped the pressure on Prime Minister Robert Abela, accusing him of being compromised over his failure to remove two ministers found guilty of ethical breaches.

The Opposition leader returned to the case involving ministers Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri during Monday’s budget debate on the estimates of the Office of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was absent from parliament while Grech spoke.

Grech accused the government of being mired in fraud and put the blame squarely at the Prime Minister’s feet.

“After the two ministers refused to resign after they were found guilty of ethical breaches, we expected the Prime Minister to sack them but instead he continues to defend their behaviour,” Grech said. He added: “Paying back the €16,000 earned fraudulently, because that is how it is looking, and simply saying sorry is not enough.”

The case concerns the employment of Bartolo’s now wife, Amanda Muscat, as a consultant, first with the tourism ministry and later with the Gozo ministry. The Standards Commissioner found that Muscat did not perform the work of consultant, which she was not qualified for, and continued working as Bartolo’s private secretary instead, for a much higher wage packet. The Standards Commissioner found that both ministers breached ethics, a report that was unanimously adopted by parliament’s ethics committee.

Grech accused Abela of being compromised. “His own ministers are holding him at ransom because they have dirt on him,” the Opposition leader charged, adding the country was yearning for change.

He drew parallels with a recent criminal case in which a former public official was found guilty by the courts of embezzling public funds. “For ordinary workers the law works; the police charged this official but when it comes to ministers, they go scott free,” Grech said.

He described the government as tired, lacking in direction and out of ideas. “Government has run out of ideas so much so that it has now engaged foreigners to help it draft a vision for the future,” he said with reference to government’s Vision 2050 exercise.

“There is one thing this government excels in – fraud. They get irked when we use this word; they do not want us to tell them this is a government mired in fraud. But truth hurts and is the truth that will set this country and its people free from the government’s fraud and corruption,” Grech said.

The Nationalist Party on Monday unveiled a new billboard campaign with the tagline ‘frodi biss, frodi spiss (only fraud, all the time)’ as it targets government inaction on wrongdoing by its own ministers.