Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia issued a ruling drawing Education Minister Clifton Grima's attention to a series of unanswered parliamentary questions filed by PN MP Rebekah Borg regarding the international school in Mtarfa.

In a ruling given on Monday, Farrugia addressed two requests made by PN MP Toni Bezzina as well as Borg, on unanswered or unclear responses to parliamentary questions.

Borg has asked the same five questions with regards to the International School in Mtarfa eight times, yet the Minister has failed to provide a reply.

While the Speaker reiterated that he has no authority over the substance of ministerial replies, he urged Grima to review the pending queries and respond in a timely manner, even if partially at first.

In the same ruling, the Speaker also addressed a request by Bezzina, who raised concerns about five different questions to several ministers regarding the use of Ministry credit and debit cards, and details on the expenditure.

Farrugia noted that while each minister gave different responses on how many credit/debit cards the Ministry makes use of in the first part of their responses, the second part of their replies was identical, stating that credit cards are issued only with approval from the Finance Ministry and that all expenditures must fall within regulated spending limits according to the respective line items.

The Speaker clarified that Standing Orders do not grant him the power to assess whether a minister's reply is complete, and that his role is limited to ensuring parliamentary rules are followed, while the responsibility to provide substantive answers lies with the Ministers themselves.