Updated | PN question ‘Labour’s secret meetings with Gaffarena’ over petrol station

The Nationalist party has called on the prime minister to release details on any pre-electoral meetings that Labour had held with the Gaffarena family over their request for a permit for their illegally-built petrol station in Qormi.

Addressing a press conference in front of Castille, shadow education minister Therese Comodinia Cachia questioned where and when the meetings were held, and who had represented Labour during the negotiations.

“Did Joseph Muscat personally meet with the Gaffarenas and agree to sanction their petrol station?” she questioned. “Muscat must come clean about the extent of his own relationship with the Gaffarenas.”

She pressured Muscat to fire Michael Falzon as planning parliamentary secretary over his role in the controversial expropriation of half a Valletta building from Marco Gaffarena

“[Opposition leader] Simon Busuttil has clearly shown how high the PN’s standards are in the way he handled the Joe Cassar case and we now expect Muscat to adopt the same standards when dealing with Falzon,” Comodini Cachia said.

Cassar, a former health minister, resigned from Parliament and the PN on Tuesday following revelations by MaltaToday that he had failed to declare over €8,000 in house works paid for by Joe Gaffarena.

Only a day earlier, Busuttil had defended his decision not to dismiss Cassar from the party but only to strip him of his role as culture spokesperson.

When asked what triggered Cassar’s decision to resign from the party, Comodini Cachia said that he had “come to recognize the high standards that the PN expects of its MPs”.

“Cassar realized that he had committed a gross error of judgement and his dismissal as spokesperson made him realize the standards that Busuttil expects from the party,” she said.

Comodini Cachia was also asked why the PN was only calling for Michael Falzon’s resignation from his position as parliamentary secretary and not from the Labour party.

“What the Labour party accepts as acceptable behaviour within its ranks is up its leader to decide. What interests me is that Falzon currently occupies a public role, in which he represents the people.

“However, Joe Cassar’s resignation has proven how high the PN’s standards are, and I now expect the same level of standards to be adopted by Joseph Muscat – both as party leader and, more importantly, as prime minister.”

Opposition MP Ryan Callus pointed out that an investigation by the OPM’s internal audit and investigations department (IAID) has already found that lands granted to Gaffarena as payment for half the expropriated property were illegally in excess of a legal 30% ceiling which such land valuations cannot exceed.

“Moreover, Falzon is so chummy with Gaffarena that they had travelled abroad together. Gaffarena personally told Falzon early on about his expropriation intentions, he handpicked the lands granted to him as compensation, and Falzon ultimately signed the deal himself.

“The government had absolutely no need to expropriate the Strada Zekka property, and it didn’t even try to expropriate it from the other owners but went straight to Gaffarena.” 

Comodini Cachia quizzed over Gaffarena links

Comodini Cachia was quizzed by Labour media station ONE about whether she had accepted any donations from the Gaffarenas during her European Parliament election campaign and whether any members of the family had since accompanied her to Brussels.

The MEP vehemently denied both counts, indeed insisting that she hadn’t accepted a single donation throughout her successful EP campaign last year.

“I believe in campaigning by personally visiting and speaking to people, and not by riding on other people’s money,” she said.

She admitted to meeting Joe Gaffarena during her house visits in the sixth district.

“Gaffarena had told me about problems with his petrol station, and I advised him to abide by the law and dismantle all illegally-built structures.”

‘When did Busuttil first find out about Gaffarena’s gifts to Cassar?’ – Labour

In a reaction, Labour questioned when Busuttil first got to know about “Gaffarena’s gifts to Cassar”.

“Not only has Busuttil failed to condemn the only former Cabinet minister who had voted for him in the PN leadership election, but he said that he is disappointed that he has decided to resign,” the PL said in a statement. “Busuttil is trying to ride the waves of Cassar’s personal decision to resign, despite the PN leader claiming over a day earlier that there is no reason for him to resign as MP”.