News | Sunday, 08 February 2009

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Central Bank inquiry into PL ‘leak’ unconcluded

Karl Schembri
More than two months since IT Minister Austin Gatt outed a Central Bank manager as “the anonymous author” of the Labour leader’s surcharge report and accused him of leaking sensitive data, the veracity of the claims remains unconfirmed as a bank inquiry is still incomplete.
Last November, Gatt accused Sandro Demarco in Parliament of breaching the bank’s ethics in passing on sensitive information to PL leader Joseph Muscat. He said Demarco had access to the latest Harmonised Consumer Price Index figures that were still unreleased, and which he allegedly “leaked” to Muscat in a report that he wrote for him.
“I found that the author of the document is Sandro Demarco, a manager at the Central Bank of Malta, who works with confidential information related to the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices,” Gatt said in Parliament. “He provided this confidential information to the MLP before it was published.”
Central Bank governor, Michael Bonello, has refrained from confirming whether Gatt’s claims were true, and an investigation launched into the incident remains unfinished.
The bank’s external relations officer, Alexander Borg, said internal investigations were still ongoing by the end of last week.
Muscat had denied Gatt’s claims, saying Demarco was only asked to give a second opinion on a document authored by someone else.
The report quoted by Gatt was put on the PL’s website and on Maltastar.com, but was removed some time later when party officials realised that Demarco’s name was featuring on the document.

Central Bank inquiry
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/11/23/t3.html

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