The Nationalist Party said on Friday that Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has been caught lying not once, but twice about the same thing and that Malta cannot have a Finance Minister who lies about how the people’s money is used.

The party said that Caruana had to “admit that he lied because he got caught.”

A Freedom of Information request by The Shift earlier this week revealed that Air Malta’s chairman and CEO David Curmi was being paid €21,500 a month for his three-year role as chairman of the national airline.

However, Caruana had not listed the salary when submitting all the salaries of the appointees under his portfolio to Parliament, instead stating that there was no remuneration for Curmi.

The story prompted a standards complaint by Arnold Cassola, which then prompted Caruana to write to the Speaker, Standards Commissioner and the media to clarify that that apart from his monthly €21,500, Curmi also takes home an additional €10,000 annually as a director’s fee.

Caruana said he was informed by Curmi on Thursday that he also received a director’s fee of €10,000 every year, and denied having misled parliament.

In a Facebook post, PN leader Bernard Grech said that the country cannot have a Finance Minister who has been caught lying to the people about their own money, and on more than one occasion.

“First he told us that Air Malta’s chairperson isn’t being paid, then when he was caught he told us that he was being paid but not as chairperson, and now because he was caught again he admitted that he was getting an ‘extra’ allowance as chairperson of Air Malta’s board,” Grech said.

The PN said that the government is based on lies, with the Labour Party’s two election slogans ‘Malta Taghna Lkoll’ and ‘L-Aqwa Zmien’ being those lies.

“They have too much to hide.  Our country deserves better.  You deserve better.”