(Adds PL statement)
The deal on the sale of the Australia Hall to third parties revealed by The Sunday Times of Malta yesterday confirmed the government was morally corrupt and using public property to finance the Labour Party and cut its accumulated debts, the Nationalist Party said.
Addressing a press conference outside Australia Hall in St Andrews, PN general secretary Chris Said said it now transpired that while minister Owen Bonnici had come out against the PN’s proposal to initiate state financing of political parties, the PL was concluding a deal to sell public property to third parties.
"This is a clear example of Labour's hypocrisy. Positioning itself against state funding of political parties while funding itself out of tax payers money," he said.
PN spokesman Ryan Callus said that this was the second major scandal involving property and the PL.
He said that while a few days ago it was revealed that the government entered into an unprecedented €4.2 million deal to bail out a commercial entity - Cafe Premier - it now struck another business deal to clear its debts and re-posses the former Raffles Disco, which had a commercial value of €7.1 million.
"This shows once again that Joseph Muscat's government is morally corrupt," Mr Callus said.
The Sunday Times of Malta yesterday revealed that the PL had struck a deal with a company owned by the Fino family and businessman Chris Gauci to sell 6,000 square metres of property in St Andrews, including the Australia Hall, for €550,000 against the payment of debts owed by the party to the company.
At the same time the private company returned the Raffles property to Labour - a prime area of more than 4,000 square metres.
PL STATEMENT
Australia Hall and the properties being mentioned by the Nationalist Party in its negative and mud-throwing campaign, this property had been given to the Labour Party in compensation for the former shipbuilding, the value of which was higher.
The PL said the Nationalist government opened a vindictive court case against the PL about the properties in question and this was done purely for partisan reasons.
It noted that those speaking about finances and trying to teach the Labour Party had left behind not just a bankrupt country but also a bankrupt party.