Prime Minister Robert Abela confirmed he had reported Bernard Grech to the tax commissioner after being tipped off by someone within the PN that the Opposition leader hadn’t paid his taxes for years.

“I was personally informed by a PN source that Bernard Grech hadn’t paid his taxes for years, and I referred it to Marvin Gaerty as was my duty,” Abela told the press today.

“It’s the duty of every citizen to report law breakers to the authorities. I don’t know this story has been turned around into the justification of an Opposition leader not paying his taxes for years and only paying them when he contested the PN leadership.”

During last summer’s PN leadership election campaign, Grech settled an outstanding €30,000 tax bill and admitted he “could have been more careful” to avoid this situation.

One of Grech’s former legal clients also told Lovin Malta that he had never provided him with a VAT receipt for his work, but suddenly withdrew his allegation the next day and insisted he got him confused with another lawyer.

Gaerty was recently arrested and interrogated about certain chats with murder suspect Yorgen Fenech, but he was released and has insisted all his communication with Fenech was above board.   

Yesterday, Sunday Times of Malta reported that police intend to analyse Gaerty’s phone but are awaiting Abela’s go-ahead after the tax commissioner flagged secrecy provisions in the Income Tax Act. However, the police issued a statement today to deny that they require any kind of authorisation from the Prime Minister before analysing anyone’s phone.

What do you make of the Prime Minister’s statement?