(Adds PL statement)
Nationalist Party officials this afternoon called for a mechanism which would evaluate the value of government-owned properties used by the political parties with a view to their being returned to the people.
Th call was made by PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami and General Secretary Chris Said at a press conference in which they gave their reactions to the White Paper on party funding.
The officials insisted that the political parties should compete on a level playing field. They complained that the Labour Party has 12 clubs plus Australia Hall, which actually belonged to the government.
The PN had two clubs built on land issued after a call for tender and another two bought on similarly-issued church land.
They pointed out that the PL was paying a rent of just 44c per day for its club at Rabat (Malta), 54 cents for the Floriana club, 91c for the Msida club and 53 cents for the Ghaxaq club, to mention a few.
Dr Fenech Adami said the PN was proposing changed to the threshold of donations which may be made to the political parties.
Donations up to €1,000 should remain anonymous. Donations between €1,001 and €10,000 should be registered in the parties' accounts and donations between €10,000 and €25,000 should be registered with the Commissioner of Standards, who should be the regulator of party funding, rather than the Electoral Commission which has a majority of government representatives. Any donation above €25,000 should be illegal.
The White Paper had proposed that all donations over €500 have to be registered by the political parties. Donations over €10,000 by the same source have to be reported to the Electoral Commission and donations over €50,000 from the same source should be banned.
On spending by candidates at general elections, the PN officials said that whereas the White Paper proposed a maximum of €25,000 for every candidate the PN was proposing a cap of €15,000 for every district contested.
For the European Parliament elections, the PN was proposing that the cap should be reduced from €50,000 to €35,000. The cap for local council elections should be €5,000 and that for administrative committees, €1,000
The officials suggested that the new law should include provisions on lending to political parties by individuals or companies that were not financial institutions. The PN felt that loans of between €10,000 and €25,000 should be registered in the party books and anything exceeding €25,000 should be registered with the commissioner. Donations exceeding €500,000 should be illegal.
The law should also include scenarios where the political party was a shareholder in a company so that these companies were not used to circumvent the party funding law.
They also suggested that there should be a cap on spending by political parties on the elections.
See White Paper details at http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140203/local/law-on-party-funding-will-also-regulate-registration-of-political-parties.505324
PN INVENTING ISSUE WHICH DOES NOT EXIST - PL
In a reaction, the Labour Party said that after bankrupting itself and ending in a situation where it could not even pay its workers' wages, the PN was now trying to invent an issue which did not exist.
The PL said the PN had not yet published its accounts and it was trying to pontificate on what the other party had.
During the years, the Labour Party had worked diligently and non abusively and published its accounts and it would be a Labour government that would introduce the Party Financing Act.