In his time as police commissioner Lawrence Cutajar was an obstacle to justice and a protection for criminality, Opposition Leader Adrian Delia said on Saturday.

His resignation, announced on Friday, came two years too late because in this timeframe the police force did not take steps that were needed on all the allegations and evidence that were emerging on important issues, Delia said on the Nationalist Party radio station.

He said that Prime Minister Robert Abela had insisted that he does not take advice from Delia, and yet one of the decisions taken was precisely to see Lawrence Cutajar out of the police corps, which is what the PN has been calling for in the past months.

The next step now should be that the government takes up the Opposition’s proposal to have the police commissioner approved by at least a two-thirds majority in Parliament, Delia said.

The PN leader said it is too early to comment full on the setting up of a board of governance within the Cabinet. He suggested however that the possibility should be explored for the board to not only have representatives from the Cabinet, but for this to be expanded to include the Opposition and civil society.

He said he was against having Mario Cutajar as its secretary. Cutajar, as head of the public service, worked to protect the government rather than to serve the public. The Opposition is calling for Cutajar’s removal so it cannot accept him as secretary to this board.

Delia said that PM Abela spoke in one way before he was elected and now he was speaking differently. Before the election he spoke of continuity, possibly to obtain the votes of people who supported Joseph Muscat, but now that he had been elected he was doing things differently. He said he hoped that the PM does not do things for political convenience.