Nationalist Party Deputy Leader Beppe Fenech Adami, back in Parliament after his cancer operation last month, has hit out at the Labour Party over the way it acquired Australia Hall and other properties in Pembroke and the One TV premises in Marsa.

Speaking in Parliament during the debate on the party funding bill, he said said that the Labour Party had acquired the Australia Hall and adjacent land in Pembroke as barter for the Freedom Press property in Marsa which the party and its Leader Dom Mintoff in his own name had bought from the Esso fuel company.

It was very strange that Mr Mintoff had first rented and then bought this land in the harbour zone which was crucial for Esso to own for their fuel trading operations. He asked why the Labour party had chosen to acquire this land when it could have established a printing press in any other area.
Tthe deal had been sealed by contract in 1963 but ten years later Dom Mintoff as Prime Minsiter had kicked Esso out of the island.

In exchange for the Freedom Press property in Marsa, Labour had been offered other land in Marsa itself. It took that land - now used for its broadcasting station - but still insisted on obtaining the ten tumuli of land in Pembroke, which was bigger than the Freedom Press area.  

He spoke on the Labour Party’s claim to acquire the former site at Marsa if it handed the property in Pembroke to the state claiming that this barter did not have any legal foundation.

Dr Fenech Adami described as obscene the decision by the government to withdraw the court case on the Pembroke property against the Labour Party. He said that the ten tumoli of land near the Australia Hall had a commercial value of €10 million which the Labour party had stolen from the state.

The Labour Party ahd similarly acquired the Rabat Labour Party club on the premises of the former Police in the heart of the locality. He said that the Party boasted of having convinced the then Minister for Lands Patrick Holland to change the rent into emphytheusis making them owners of the property for a meagre sum of money.

He argued that the Labour Party had for years financed itself by 'stealing' public and private property also through abusing the Requisition order ordinance.

Dr Fenech Adami said the Opposition was in favour of regulating party financing and had made proposals on the matter after the white paper had been published. He said that it had also proposed thresholds so that donations could be regulated. He accused the government of using populist terms to promote the bill when it was projecting a lie. It was being hypocrital in criticising the Opposition for proposing state funding of political parties. He said that this system was commonly found in many European democratic states and was the way forward in holding poltiical parties accountable to the public.
 
Dr Fenech Adami held that the Labour Party had to come clean with respect to Henley & Partners (who administer the Citizenship scheme). Were any promises made before the general election?

 

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