Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was quoted by the Department of Information as saying that the hearing, conceived by the opposition, had confirmed the government’s integrity over the way it had handled the purchase of Malta’s Brussels embassy and had also confirmed that the decision was sound, both from an administrative and political point of view.

The government had never had anything to hide on the subject and had invited the opposition to take the issue to the Auditor General. Instead, the MLP had sought to gain a political advantage from the situation and had staged a two-month-long campaign founded on lies, attacking all the individuals who had taken part in the process.

Now that the PAC hearing has been concluded, said Dr Gonzi, the machinations of the Labour party have been revealed. The allegations of the opposition, together with the personal attacks that have characterised the messages of the opposition leader over these past months, have all vanished into thin air, he said.

The DOI statement also made reference to the testimony given by Mr Albert Mizzi who certified that the decision to buy the property was a good one... the best that the government could have taken.

The fact that the government has been cleared of all the allegations made by the opposition should be of satisfaction to the Maltese people as well. They can now set their minds at ease that the government took the decision in the best interests of the people.

In a second statement, the DOI made reference to a number of claims made by Dr Sant over recent months and countered them one by one. The PAC hearings confirmed, for example, that estate agents Confimimmo had made Lm500,000 from the deal and not Lm4 million as Dr Sant had alleged, the statement said. Furthermore, it was also shown that MIMCOL had negotiated the whole process and not Mr Richard Cachia Caruana, as was claimed by Dr Sant.

The same applies to Dr Sant’s accusation of a lack of transparency. The statement made by the permanent secretary within the Finance Ministry cleared the government of any wrongdoing, confirming that procedure was followed at all stages.

Opposition leader Alfred Sant, on the other hand, said that the Maltese people have every reason to be angry with the government following the PAC. Everyone had had the chance to hear how the government had spent over Lm10 million on the Brussels embassy at a time when the government’s debt is nearing Lm2 billion.

He said that no government representative ever took into consideration whether the country could actually afford the embassy. They completely ignored the country’s bad financial situation and even went against the principle of efficiency, which the government itself is saying it wants to introduce.

He said that the government had tried to defend itself by calling to its defence a businessman whose only job was to state whether the property was a good buy. Whether the deal was a good one in the light of Malta’s bad financial situation was never mentioned.

Now that the mess has been created, the Prime Minister is trying to assure the people that the refurbishment of the embassy will not exceed Lm2.5 million, when the expert hired by the government is himself saying that it will definitively exceed that figure.

Referring to Richard Cachia Caruana, Dr Sant said that throughout the entire process it was obvious that everyone was trying to hide the fact that the whole deal was the work of “his excellency”. He said that this was confirmed when Dr Peter Caruana Galizia said clearly in his testimony that it was Mr Cachia Caruana who took the decisions all along. Dr Gonzi is still going on with the “Fenech Adami, money no problem”, way of doing things at the people’s expense, said Dr Sant.