Mugliett rejects accusations of having ‘misled by silence’

Nationalist MP Jesmond Mugliett has rejected an articles published in The Times today that reports him as having "misled by silence".

The newspaper reported that Mugliett remained silent when a parliamentary committee discussed the extension of the MCP car park lease that included a clause he later objected to.

Mugliett, a former transport minister, said he had resigned his seat after being offered "too simplistic an answer" over the calculations presented for government's acquisition of some 100 car park places in the Floriana multi-storey car park.

The government recently granted an additional 65-year lease extension to the MCP car park.

Mugliett himself confirmed that he had remained silent during the meeting of the National Audit Committee, adding that he knew that no satisfactory answer would be forthcoming.

"During the meeting I had signified my intention to speak, but the Chairman was going round the various members taking their questions one member at a time, and giving the Minister the opportunity to reply to each member immediately after the member's questions were made," Mugliett said in a statement. 

He said that his turn would have been one of the last. He said he submitted his resignation letter to the chairman immediately on hearing the Minister's explanation of the valuation when replying to one of the members.

"I left, rather than questioning the calculation process since I knew that a satisfactory answer to further questions would not be forthcoming," Mugliett said.

The former transport minister explained that the calculation of a leasehold over a definite period can be arrived at by a discounted cash flow calculation. He said that it was not a simple calculation, where the critical factor is the discount rate used. 

"This in itself would need a thorough examination and discussion. Members of the committee should have been treated with better respect and given the valuation calculations and explanation beforehand, rather than having to make rudimentary questions at the only opportunity available," Mugliett argued.

Referring to the newspaper's accusation that he had misled by his silence, Mugliett said: "This is an unfortunate fostering of a culture that MP's on the government side should toe faithfully  the party line and shy away from taking objective stands which are in the public interest.  Otherwise they are called disgruntled, disloyal or dissenters." 

Mugliett added that the newspaper should have probed why the acquisition of the car parking spaces was not mentioned in the Ministerial press conference announcing the deal with MCP Ltd, what are the 100 car parking spaces needed for and why is the Government buying this number of spaces when it is building another car park near the Independence Arena.

"The journalist's biggest failure is that he did not even attempt to probe the most pertinent question for which I put my head on the block, and to which the public is eager to have a reply- is the price being paid for the 100 spaces fair and reasonable?" Mugliett said.