The government is not ruling out eliminating legal loopholes which enable political parties to receive loans without declaring where they came from, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis has said.
The minister was reacting after Times of Malta asked if the government would be amending the Party Funding Act to force the Nationalist Party to withdraw or amend its Skema Cedoli.
Through the scheme, the PN is accepting loans of up to €10,000 in an effort to cancel out party debt. The scheme will see loans repaid in 10 years with a four per cent annual interest rate.
Dr Zammit Lewis would not say whether the possibility of amending the law had been discussed within the government’s parliamentary group.
Earlier, he addressed a press conference during which he called on Opposition leader Simon Busuttil to ensure that money being donated through the scheme was not coming from “illicit means”.
He asked whether any of those donating money to the PN were mentioned in the latest Panama Papers data dump.
Today’s press conference was the third called by the Labour Party in as many days, criticising the Opposition for hypocrisy in the Panama scandal.
The Tourism Minister was joined by PL deputy leader hopeful Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi who said several prominent people who had been mentioned in the latest Panama scandal were close to the core of the PN.
PN REACTION - GOVERNMENT IN UNDEMOCRATIC MOVE TO STOP PARTY'S SUCCESSFUL SCHEME
In a reaction, the Nationalist party said it was shameful that while everybody was talking about the Panama scandal involving Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri, the only thing on the government’s agenda was its Cedoli loans scheme,
The party insisted this is a professionally-drawn up scheme in line with the law,
It said the scheme is turning out to be a big success.
“Contrary to the impression which the Labour Party is trying to give, all the loans being given to the Nationalist Party are being made through contracts. The funds are coming through local banks under procedures which are open to scrutiny by the authorities," the party said.
The PN said this was the second time in as many months that the government was threatening to change the law to gag the Opposition.
In the first case, it had carried out its threat to amend the law so that PN billboards would be removed. A court, however, had upheld a request by the PN for the billboards not to be removed.
This is nothing more than an undemocratic act of the sort done in dictatorial countries
Now the government was saying that it would consider ways to amend the Party Funding Act in order to stop the PN’s successful scheme.
“This is nothing more than an undemocratic act of the sort done in dictatorial countries,” the PN said.
It added that Labour’s hypocrisy became more evident when one remembered how the party received funds before the last general election, with the party then having to meet obligations.