Opposition members of the Electoral Commission have been raising every imaginable procedural excuse to stultify the commission in its investigations of the donations to the PN by the db Group and whether this infringed party financing legislation, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici told parliament this evening. 

Dr Bonnici said that whoever believed in transparency would have handed his office keys to the commission and allowed it to delve into the files to show there was nothing untoward.

Reacting to comments by Marlene Farrugia during question time, the minister repeatedly said that the PN broke party financing laws when it did not declare donations received by its company, Media.link Communications from the db group.

Asked why the PL did not register with the Electoral Commission and whether this was a ploy to evade submitting the donations’ list, Dr Bonnici said that the PL was the first to submit its registration. However, the commission found that the party statute did not have a clause saying what would become of its assets were the party to disband.

He said this technicality would be addressed in the next few weeks after the PL general conference amended the statute. The list of donations received by the party last year would follow suit.

Dr Bonnici recalled that the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) had long insisted with the Nationalist government to introduce the party financing legislation but the PN dragged it feet.

Now it had resulted that after two years of calling everybody corrupt, it was Leader of the Opposition Simon Busuttil who broke the law by having personally arranged for donations that were more than the limit allowed by law. The party’s treasurer had denied any knowledge.

The minister denied Marlene Farrugia’s assertion that the PL’s state of affairs was in disarray and that this was the main reason why the party did not give the Electoral Commission the list of donations.

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