The Labour Party’s spokesmen on the environment, Joe Brincat and Roderick Galdes, said the Nationalist Party and its media had lied about a donation the MLP made in aid of tree planting at Mellieha, where trees had been vandalised.

With this attitude, they said, the government was showing there was nothing genuine in the manner in which it was dealing with the environment. Before creating the controversy, the PN media should have checked the facts.

The MLP had in fact made its donation without delay and BirdLife Malta had written to the MLP to thank it for the donation. They added they now expected environment minister George Pullicino to confirm that the donation had in fact been made.