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€1.20 YOUR FIRST READ AND FIRST CLICK OF THE DAY WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT ANTOINE & DAVID HAPPILY MARRIED PGS 14-15 Download the MaltaToday App now maltatoday SUNDAY • 20 OCTOBER 2013 • ISSUE 728 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY Maltese contractors lament not being paid for work at parliament building the Maltese treasury regularly, but that the Italians have failed to pay the subcontractors. Garnishee orders dated 20 September of this year have been issued against Filiberti srl, but the Maltese sub contractors are still owed thousands of euros. Some contractors have stopped providing works, but others continue to provide their services in the hope that the matter will be resolved. MaltaToday has also discovered HANKS STARS AS CAPTAIN PHILLIPS PG 3 that the estimates carried for finalising parliament are well below the real costs. A case in point for the untimely costs is the finalisation of the very expensive Maltese hard stone, which is cut and then polished in Parma, Italy and affixed to the façade of the parliament. Filiberti had originally calculated that only 25% of the stone slabs would be damaged. It turned out that up to 60% of the stone slabs broke or were damaged in the process. MEPA APPROVES DEVELOPMENT NEXT TO TEMPLE PG 5 PN's silence on gay unions belies party's liberal turn THE jury is still out on how the Nationalist Party will be shaping its political response on a popular civil unions bill that will introduce gay marriage in Maltese law, in all but name. After throwing his weight behind a historic divorce referendum victory in 2011, Joseph Muscat's response to the pink vote was to promise civil unions. Bleeding support, in their last year of government the Nationalists started tightening the screws on a piece of legislation first promised in 1998: rights for cohabiting partners, both opposite- and samesex couples. Now in opposition, the PN has to face up to the fact that Labour is in fact on the upswing on civil liberties. But at least nine Nationalist MPs, and former ministers, contacted by MaltaToday this week were unwilling to comment on their stance on civil unions, all of them citing the fact that the bill has not been debated inside the PN parliamentary group. CONTINUES ON PAGE 4 ANGLU FARRUGIA SUPPORTS SHAM ELECTIONS PG 7 MIDDLE SEA RACE KICKS OFF PG 52 Labour parliamentarian says €38,000 appointment no conflict for him A 27-year-old Labour MP who has been employed by Minister for the Economy Chris Cardona as his consultant sees no conflict in his role as chair of a parliamentary committee that deals with the economy and financial matters. Newly-elected MP Silvio Schembri was appointed by Cardona on a €38,512 salary as his consultant to supervise the implementation of electoral measures falling under the responsibility of the ministry for the economy. He earns close to €63,000 together with his parliamentary honorarium. CONTINUES ON PAGE 16 Silvio Schembri Newspaper post A number of Maltese companies sub-contracted by an Italian company entrusted to carry out works by a consortium of Maltese companies known as BIB have issued garnishee orders against Filiberti Design Stone srl. They have also taken judicial procedures against the Maltese consortium BIB calling on it not to issue payments to Filiberti Design Stone srl. The Maltese sub contractors have pointed out that the Maltese consortium BIB has been paid by