Updated 1.40pm with PN reaction

The Labour Party urged the Opposition leader to immediately publish the invoices to db Group for €70,800 purportedly booked for advertising, a claim the hotel chain denies. 

During a news conference, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said he does not believe Simon Busuttil's claims that the money received from db Group was to cover services rendered. The group insists the money donated covered salaries to two top party officials. 

Dr Zammit Lewis insisted that the PN had failed to claim the money received from db Group as donations and it was therefore in breach of Article 39 of the party financing legislation.

He accused Dr Busuttil of urging people to take to the streets and going on about good governance, when he was then calling businessmen to pay workers' salaries. 

Speaking during the news conference, Parliamentary secretary Deborah Schembri urged the public to realise that the Nationalist Party was acting this way while in opposition let alone if it was serving in government.

Dr Busuttil revealed on Sunday that db Group had asked for its money back after the party's criticism of the government's concession of the Institute for Tourism Studies in St George's Bay. 

Instead of apologising for failing to register the party, the PL was trying to deflect attention, the Nationalist Party charged in reaction.

It was the PN which revealed the donations it had received from db Group as well as its commercial relationship because it had nothing to hide. 

"The bottom line is that Simon Busuttil isn't bought. Busuttil did something no other politician ever did in our country by speaking out against a dubious deal involving a person who used to donate to the Nationalist Party," the PN said in a statement.