Accusing the Leader of the Opposition of not accepting the Prime Minister’s proposal to strengthen the Permanent Commission against Corruption, the government yesterday said it has been almost three months since the proposal was made.

In a statement issued through the Department of Information, the government said it could not help noting that while the Opposition Leader was continually making accusations, he had done nothing about the opportunity he had been given to join the government in the fight against corruption.

In itself this revealed the strategy of Dr Alfred Sant, the government said – he was interested only to use the word corruption to make political gain.

The same had happened when the Opposition Leader had been invited to testify to parliament’s public accounts committee.

In his partisan strategy, the government said, Dr Sant had for the last years not lost an occasion to allege corruption. Now he was mentioning a report by a foreign agency which reported that in Malta there were many who were speaking about corruption. All that the report said was that in Malta the perception of corruption had increased.

The government again invited the Opposition Leader to join it in strengthening the structures for a better public administration.