Debono requests PN accounts, ‘Budget bye bye’ if Gatt stays on as minister

Nationalist MP Franco Debono is actively toying with a candidature for the PN's deputy leadership, going by his latest comments to MaltaToday.

Debono, who has filed a no-confidence motion against transport minister Austin Gatt and previously declared he will not vote in favour of the budget in November, said he will ask PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier to grant him access to the party accounts, before deciding whether to contest the deputy leader election to be held between 29 November and 2 December.

"I have been approached by a number of councillors who encouraged me to contest. However before deciding, I want to see the party's accounts and verify in what state Paul Borg Olivier has brought the party to," Debono said.

Debono's claim will instantly strike party councillors and observers as an odd aspiration: he has only declared that he would never support Lawrence Gonzi or his government, while being a heavy critic of his leadership.

Debono however told MaltaToday that he wants to know "the reality of the party's financial state and what the persons who are known to donate large amounts of money to the PN got in return."

He also warned Malta would "pass through a corruption scandal in the style of Italy's clean hands (mani pulite) investigations", citing his appeal to the Commissioner of Police to look into his allegations in parliament on the St Philip's Hospital contract.

Debono is now standing by declarations that he will not vote in favour of the budget, expected to be presented by the end of November.

"Budget 'bye bye'," Debono said. "Austin Gatt has to go. I stand by what I said over the budget. If Gatt remains minister I will not vote for it, even if the budget is manna from heaven," he said.

The bellicose MP also said government was gambling ahead of the budget in which it was still not guaranteed a majority. "Government can verify its majority by either tabling a vote of confidence, or putting a law to vote."

"Going ahead with the budget knowing it won't be approved is irresponsible. These are ugly days for democracy in Malta."

Earlier today, in a new post to his personal blog that referred to comments by Nationalist MEP Simon Busuttil welcoming the MP's "conciliatory tone", Debono once again gave short shrift to the PN's less than accommodating attitude.

"They want war? They will have it," he wrote of the PN's statement yesterday that its decision to ban Debono from the party would stand.

"They don't want reconciliation? Then they should forget the Budget. It's either Austin Gatt or the Budget."

Debono also added in yet another post that he would even consider demanding a magisterial inquiry into a court testimony by former Sliema mayor Nikki Dimech, who said Borg Olivier had asked him to favour the selection of Green MT, a waste recycling firm, over GreenPak for the local council. "If Borg Olivier will not give a plausible explanation to Nikki Dimech's testimony I could very soon ask for a magisterial inquiry."

"He [Borg Olivier] should be ashamed of having his wife as his secretary, giving the impression that the party is at his family's service. Does this happen in any other organisation? One's wife acting as his secretary?" Debono wrote. 

Borg Olivier's wife however was employed at the party before her husband succeeded Joe Saliba as PN secretary-general.  

Debono also called for the PN to ban Borg Olivier over his responsibility for PN's troubles. "He [Borg Olivier] is incompetent and everyone knows. He should be ashamed to even utter my name. He has been unsuccessfully contesting elections for ages."