2023 ministerial declarations: Abela defies Standards Commissioner

Prime Minister Robert Abela continues to show signs of defiance towards the institutions, this time towards Standards Commissioner Joe Azzopardi.

In comments to the media following Azzopardi’s appeal to the prime minister to publish the 2023 ministerial asset declarations, Abela insisted that he would not follow the Standards Commissioner’s direction to publish them.

Instead, he repeated that he would only publish these declarations once a reform he wanted to introduce was implemented.

His ‘reform’ pledge only came after The Shift revealed that Abela did not publish the 2023 declarations, breaking a 30-year-old tradition followed by his predecessors.

Until 2022, Abela also followed the same tradition and tabled these annual declarations in parliament. The reason for his sudden change of heart is as yet unclear.

In attempting to defend his decision to keep the 2023 declarations under wraps, the prime minister has been shifting the goalposts on whether these declarations have been published until it became evident they were nowhere to be found. The Shift confirmed this with the Standards Commissioner.

Last Friday, the prime minister told Malta Today that all members of the PL group had already submitted their declarations (a different one) to the Speaker of the House and that these had been published and tabled in parliament.

Unlike ministerial declarations, MPs’ annual declarations are never tabled. Instead, they are kept in a file by the Speaker and are only open to inspection by appointment upon a request made to his office.

Insisting that the 2023 ministerial declarations were made to him on time, Abela repeated his original inaccurate statement that they were also available for inspection upon a request to the Cabinet Secretary.

The Shift made an official request to Cabinet Secretary Ryan Spagnol over two weeks ago. Spagnol, who can only act upon the instructions of the prime minister, did not reply to The Shift’s request.

The last ministerial declarations published were for the year 2022.

Some of those declarations, including the one submitted by Abela, which are now under scrutiny by the Standards Commissioner, raised questions about how truthful they were. His wife’s assets, if any, were not listed despite the Standards Commissioner’s specific direction.

While declaring a €65,000 pre-tax income for 2022, Abela saw his savings increase despite having forked out hundreds of thousands to buy a new property in Xewkija, Gozo, to use for his new boutique hotel investment.

Also, his declared income indicated discrepancies with his lifestyle.