Speaker confirms 2023 asset declarations still missing

The President of the House of Representatives, Anglu Farrugia, confirmed that Prime Minister Robert Abela has so far failed to table the 2023 declarations of assets of Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and their spouses or partners.

Confirming a report by The Shift last month, a spokesman for the Speaker’s office said that the previous annual declarations available date back to 2022 and that “the 2023 declarations have to date not been tabled in Parliament.”

Earlier this week, following up on this newsroom’s report, PN MP Karol Aquilina asked Robert Abela to state why he has not published the annual asset declarations for 2023.

Surprisingly, the Prime Minister replied that the information was already available to the public.

Despite the Prime Minister’s insistence, the records were not available. The declarations must be published annually, according to the code of ethics.

When The Shift asked OPM spokesperson Edward Montebello for a copy, he repeated the Prime Minister’s reply in Parliament that the declarations had already been made public. He declined to send a copy.

Referring to the Prime Minister’s replies in Parliament, PN MP Karol Aquilina asked the Speaker for a ruling obliging Robert Abela to table the 2023 declarations in Parliament. A decision is still to be made.

According to the ministerial code of ethics, all ministers and parliamentary secretaries must declare all their assets and those of their spouses/partners by March of each year.

These are then usually published by the Prime Minister and tabled in Parliament.

The last published declarations had raised serious questions about their veracity. For example, questions were raised about Robert Abela’s declaration and whether he was using undeclared assets held by his wife Lydia to pay for property acquisitions without declaring them as required.

Despite purchasing a new property in Gozo in 2022, Robert Abela declared an increase in his savings, which did not reflect the expenditure on the acquired property.

In his declaration, Abela insisted that his family’s income for 2022 stood at just €65,000 – his salary as prime minister.

Independent candidate Arnold Cassola had asked the Standards Commissioner for an investigation.