Update 2 | Giovanna Debono resigns from PN but holds on to her seat

Giovanna Debono announces resignation from the PN but to stay on as MP

The former minister for Gozo Giovanna Debono has announced that she tendered her resignation from the Nationalist Party but she will not be relinquishing her Parliamentary seat.

Speaking outside court in Victoria, Gozo just minutes after her husband Anthony was arraigned over charges of using the ministerial budget to commission private works for constituents, Debono explained that she will however stay on as an independent MP. This means the PN will not be able to replace Debono's seat, taking the opposition's seats to 29.

PN leader asks Chris Said to stand down as secretary-general to focus on Gozo

The announcement came minutes before the Nationalist leader Simon Busuttil addressed a press conference at the party's headquarters in Pieta in which he confirmed that the former party stalwart had tendered her resignation from the PN’s parliamentary group.  

“Once we know that Debono’s husband has been arraigned the time has come for me to take action. I immediately called on her and following the meeting I had with her I received her resignation letter.”

Busuttil added that he accepted Debono’s resignation letter “with sadness following the long and sterling service she gave to Malta and especially Gozo.”

Acknowledging that these latest developments continue to undermine the party’s stranding in Gozo, the PN leader today said that he asked Gozitan MP Chris Said to stand down as PN secretary-general in order to focus his energies on the constituency and re-establish the PN’s former “fortress”.

The other Gozitan MP on the opposition’s benches, Frederick Azzopardi, who was elected through the Constitutional mechanism to reflect electoral proportionality, has also said that he will not stand for re-election in the 2018 general election. 

In 2013, for the first time ever the Labour party elected the majority of seats in Gozo and since then the PN has seen its share of votes dwindle in its former stronghold.

Denying all accusations of any wrongdoing, the former minister said she was resigning from the party she has represented since 1987. Following the 2013 election, she had said that she would not stand for re-election in 2018.

Following a report in MaltaToday, Anthony Debono was today accused of having misappropriated over €5,000 in public funds by virtue of his employment; of having profited, to the tune of over €5,000, from public monies and private contractors; used his official capacity as a civil servant, to his own private advantage, in dereliction of his public duty; rendered himself an accomplice in the falsification of public documents for the issuing of payments and goods; and abused of his public role and of public acts entrusted to him.

Busuttil reacts

Asked whether Busuttil himself had called for Debono’s resignation or if she had offered her resignation immediately, Busuttil said that after a meeting, Debono presented her letter of resignation. “I leave you to make your own conclusions,” he said.

On Debono’s choice to stay on as an independent MP, Busuttil said that elected MPs have the right to keep their own chairs and the party cannot force someone out of parliament. What she does as an independent MP, he said, is entirely up to her.

Asked whether this was an isolated incident or whether more cases could be expected to emerge, Busuttil said he would treat each and any case that turns up individually. “The ball is now in Muscat’s court,” he said, making reference to similar allegations that continued after the 2013 election, which had not as yet been investigated, as well as more recent cases.

“The law is the same for everyone and I call on Muscat to address these cases.”

Chris Said’s appointment as shadow minister for Gozo would, he said, strengthen the PN’s presence in Gozo. Despite there being three elected MPs from Gozo, Debono and Frederick Azzopardi both announced that they would not contest the next election.

“Now it is up to Said to close the gap and make Gozo the PN’s natural home, as it once was,” he said.