PN says donations over €25,000 should be illegal

The PN has called on the Labour Party to return government properties that it gave itself during the years before a party financing bill comes into effect.

Nationalist deputy leader for party affairs Beppe Fenech Adami told the media that the Labour Party only pays a rent of 44c per day for its club in Rabat, 54c for the club in St Anne Street Floriana, 53c for the Ghaxaq club and 91c for the Msida club. He said the PL had properties in other locations as well, including the Australia Hall “€10 million gift.”

Beppe Fenech Adami, flanked by secretary-general Chris Said and Paula Mifsud Bonnici, said the Nationalist Party agrees in principle with the need of a party financing bill and published its submissions to the government.

The PN wants to see loans of between €10,000 to €25,000 by third parties that are not financial institutions, registered under a party financing regime, while loans higher than €25,000 should be registered with a proposed Commissioner for Standards and loans higher than €500,000 become illegal.

Fenech Adami also said that donations over €25,000 to parties, contrary to the €50,000 cap laid down in the White Paper, should be made illegal.

The PN also wants the €25,000 threshold for candidates’ spending to fall to €15,000 per district contested; and from €50,000 in European elections to €35,000, while local council candidates would have a €5,000 limit and administrative council candidates a capping of €1,000.

He added the PN disagrees with the government’s proposal that the Electoral Commission should be the main body that regulates the parties’ position.

“The majority of the commission members are nominated by the government, we believe that the competent body should be an autonomous commissioner for political standards, who should be approved by a two-thirds majority.”

Fenech Adami also criticised the party financing White Paper for not including anything on spending caps for electoral spending, or about the finances of parties’ commercial companies.

The MP criticised Labour for refusing to return to the State “gifts” of property it had been granted, such as Pembroke’s Australia Hall, a compensation it received for the expropriation of land at the site of the Malta Shipbuilding. Fenech Adami said the PN’s clubs included only two properties devolved to it from the Catholic archdiocese and two government properties it acquired by a competitive tender.