Updated - Adds PL, government reactions
The government is building the necessary foundations for the country to have a law regulating party financing for more seriousness to be instilled in their operations, it said this evening.
In a statement, it appealed to the Opposition to be part of this work for the law to be approved from Parliament as quickly as possible. It said that it was ironic that after dragging its feet when it came to this law once in government, it was again dragging its feet now that it was in opposition.
The Nationalist Party said today that its proposal for state funding of political parties, made yesterday, was the same one made by the Labour Party in the last legislature.
PN Deputy Leader Beppe Fenech Adami yesterday proposed the setting up of a working group to discuss the introduction of ‘an element of state funding of political parties’. But Justice Minister Owen Bonnici replied that this was not the time to use taxpayers’ money to fund political parties. He also insisted that the Party Financing Law (which will regulate donations to the parties) could not be delayed any longer.
In a new statement today, Dr Fenech Adami said it was the Labour Party which had proposed state funding for the parties. The proposal was made at a meeting of a parliamentary select committee. That proposal, he said, had now been agreed to by both the PN and by Alternattiva Demokratika.
He said his proposal for the select committee to report on party funding within a month would not have delayed the party financing law, which comes into force on January 1 next year.
In a reaction, the Labour Party said the PN should not seek taxpayers' money to solve its own problems.
Reacting to Dr Fenech Adami's calls for state funding of political parties, the PL said the party financing law was aimed at regulating donations to the parties. The finances of the parties had to be regulated to ensure their was transparency and accountability, before state funding could be considered.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the former government had had proposals on state funding but never did anything.
Taxpayers' money should be used wisely to create wealth and jobs and not to solve some political party's problems, the PL said.