Labour MP asks Speaker to investigate Austin Gatt’s claims of ‘bought PQs’

Labour MP Evarist Bartolo has asked the Speaker of the House to investigate claims made by Investments Minister Austin Gatt, and Nationalist whip David Agius, that he had asked parliamentary questions on public contracts because he had “interests” in the private company Computer Domain.

Gatt wrote in MaltaToday claiming that information Bartolo had and wrote about in this same newspaper “proves he was in contact” with a bidder of a government e-learning contract. “There is no other way he could have known the circumstances he mentions.”

In a statement, Bartolo today said that his declarations of interests were honest, and that all his assets and incomes had been dutifully declared.

He asked Speaker Michael Frendo to investigate the claims by Gatt and similar ones by David Agius “because they are tantamount to a grave accusation that I made a false declaration of assets.”

Bartolo said he would give Frendo full access to his bank account and any information from the inland revenue department that could be necessary for a “full investigation”.

The Labour MP also said he had passed on anonymous letters containing the same allegations, to the police for investigation.

“I am sorry to say that they have not been seriously investigate. These accusations started being made when I started to follow and make PQs about public contracts, amongst them that of the power station in Delimara and the IT contracts connected to education.

“Whenever I spoke of the award of a public contract I always did this to see that the tendering process would be fair and clean, and not to favour any side.”