Robert Arrigo: ‘Bernard Grech lied on TV’

Updated at 5:33pm with Bernard Grech statement

Robert Arrigo has accused Bernard Grech of lying in a television interview over an internal investigation on the Naxxar mayor’s behaviour.

In an unceremonious post on his Facebook page, Arrigo said the Nationalist Party leader lied when asked about the outcome of the investigation into Anne Marie Muscat Fenech Adami on TVM News Plus’s Xtra at the start of June. In a statement (see further down), Grech denied the claims.

On Xtra, Grech had said the internal investigation initiated late last year had not yet concluded.

Arrigo, who is a PN MP, said the “internal trial” concerning Muscat Fenech Adami and the report were ready “months ago”. The outcome, he added, was one that Grech did not like because it contradicted his stand when asking the mayor to resign.

“He said the report was not done, when actually it was,” Arrigo said, going on to accuse the PN leader of never assuming fault. “Of course, he is never at fault, not even with a horrible showing in the general elections. Other honourable gentlemen before him resigned after a result not as disastrous as this.”

The PN leader had asked Muscat Fenech Adami to resign when MaltaToday had flagged a potential conflict of interest she had when voting in favour of a high-rise development in Naxxar.

After she refused to go, the PN Secretary-general Michael Piccinino referred the matter to the party’s disciplinary board.

Arrigo accused Grech of “belittling” his own party and “lying” about the board tasked to investigate Muscat Fenech Adami. He also accused the PN leader of “killing” the party’s administrative council, “who were made to look like idiots”.

Arrigo went on to ask Grech to take the honourable step, implying that he should resign. “A Kap (leader) lying to himself on TV. An honourable step is awaited,” Arrigo ended his missive.

Bernard Grech rebuts

The PN leader rebutted Arrigo's claims, insisting that what he wrote was not true.

"On the Naxxar mayor's case, the administrative council had decided not to deal with the matter just before the general election. This was a suggestion by Robert Arrigo, who participated wholeheartedly in this decision," Grech said in a statement released to the media.

Grech insisted that facts showed that at no time did he stop the publication of any report compiled by the ethics and disciplinary board. "The Naxxar mayor's case is on the agenda of the administrative council," Grech said.

Arrigo on the warpath

This is the second time in a space of a few days that Arrigo has criticised Grech’s leadership of the party.

On Saturday, at the end of the general council during which Alex Perici Calascione was confirmed deputy leader, Arrigo complained over how he was side-lined in the election campaign. He indicated two incidents when party functionaries stopped him from entering a PN club and asked him to stay with the crowd during a mass meeting.

The former Sliema mayor also used his Facebook page to publish a letter sent to him in August 2021 by the VAT Department soliciting the payment of more than €200,000 due by the PN’s media company, Media.Link.

Arrigo said the PN under Grech’s leadership had stopped paying the VAT Department.

Arrigo, who was deputy leader until the last election, joins a list of former MPs, candidates and party functionaries who in the aftermath of the election have voiced bitterness at how they were treated.

Last month, on Xtra, former MP Mario Galea, spoke of how he had been labelled “expired” and ostracised. Galea had withdrawn his PN candidature in the last election on the first day of the campaign.

Galea said that he did not expect Grech to immediately announce he will be contesting the post of leader again after the PN suffered its third consecutive drubbing in a general election.

Galea expressed solidarity with Arrigo after speaking of his hurt at how he was treated by the party.