Minister accuses PN of ‘using democracy to undermine democracy’

The Opposition was using democracy “to undermine democracy” and hinder the government’s work by accusing it of cover-ups whenever necessary action is taken, Transport Minister Joe Mizzi told parliament this evening.

Taking the floor during the parliamentary debate on a law set to grant parliament full autonomy, Mizzi said the government and opposition must respect each other’s roles.

“It is the opposition’s duty and a democratic right to speak out but this opposition simply wants to undermine government’s work. Those who today talk of deals that stink of corruption will soon realize that the stench is coming from their side,” the minister said in a fervent speech.

One of the longest serving members of the Maltese parliament, Mizzi harked back to his time as the opposition’s whip arguing that, while doing his job as whip, he still cooperated with the then Nationalist governments for parliamentary work to move forward.

He said, that it was unjust of the opposition to accuse the government of cover-ups every time the government took the necessary action to rectify shortcomings.

“What the opposition conveniently forgets is that they used to make fun of me when I used to raise the alarm on corruption. I was ignored when I kept telling parliament of the rampant corruption in the issuance of licences. Even when I tabled a list of names and a racket had been uncovered at ADT, they still made fun of me … and no minister had resigned,” Mizzi said.

Referring to an earlier speech by the leader of the Opposition, Mizzi questioned how the government could be accused of paying off its own backbenchers when it was the previous administration that had introduced the role of parliamentary assistants.

“They used to make fun of me even when I asked how a parliamentary assistant was asking parliamentary questions to the same ministry he formed part of. I was even prove right by a Speaker’s ruling,” the minister said, adding that assigning roles to backbenchers had become wrong “just because Labour is in government”.

Sarcastically referring to the PN MPs as “Christians”, Mizzi said that even he had been personally attacked and his family dragged into the fray “with false reporting”.

He referred to a recent incident when the PN media had criticized him for wearing casual clothes during a brief entrance in parliament: “They knew I had arrived to parliament straight from the hospital. They knew what I was going through and yet they allowed their media to report what it reported. Is this the dignity of MPs they believe in?”