Independent candidate Arnold Cassola has claimed that an answer to a parliamentary question was changed after he submitted a call for an investigation by the Standards Commissioner.

On Monday, Cassola wrote to the Standards Commissioner to request an investigation into what Cassola is alleging to be a breach of ethics by parliamentary secretary Andy Ellul.

In his letter, Cassola said that a reply to parliamentary question 11465 given on 25 September, it emerged that Lex Group Limited was given a consultancy contract from the Creativity Centre Foundation, worth €800 a month, valid for the whole of 2023.

The owner of this company is Andy Ellul, and the contract was given when he was already a parliamentary secretary within the Office of the Prime Minister.

According to Cassola, this constitutes a breach of ethics and “confirms the impunity climate” that has taken root in the political class.

In a statement on Tuesday, Cassola said that in his reply to the parliamentary question, Minister Owen Bonnici had said that Andy Ellul’s company Lex Group Limited had been awarded the consultancy.

But, following the letter to the Standards commissioner, “yesterday evening the PQ answer was changed by the authorities. Abracadabra, Lex Group Ltd was changed to Lex Group Legal,” Cassola said.

“What games are we playing here? Why was this changed after I pointed it out? Did the Minister mislead with his answer?”

The dates of the consultancy also changed - in the first reply, it was listed as for the duration of 2023, but in the correction the contract started on 2 April 2022 and will finish on 31 March 2025.

Below: Screenshpts showing the change made to the answer given to the parliamentary question