The Nationalist Party is committing a grave misjudgment in forging ahead with plans to hold the Independence Day Mass Meeting on the granaries.

Many have already remarked that the PN supporter base does not even feel like any sort of political gathering at present, still smarting from the landslide defeat in the last general election. It will be a big waste of funds .In addition, the announcement was followed by a ‘request’ by the party leadership for employees to forego two months worth of salary, or to be paid sometime in the future.

 This is, in bad taste. First of all, the PN needs to recognise that the employees it is talking too are human beings. They are fathers, mothers, husbands and wives. A great deal of them have families to support. They have not been paid for months on end. And now, the party forges ahead with a party, while its employees scrimp and save to make ends meet? How unbecoming.

Others have already suggested that what the PN should do is to simply scrap the meeting and embark on a fundraising drive to pay the salaries and wages of those who have not been paid for months. One can be sure that all loyal PN supporters will dig into their pockets to give recognition to the household names that they have associated with news and media for the past five years and more. The same PN supporters would have absolutely no qualms at all in the money they have raised being used to pay the salaries of those workers for the next few months, if need be.

The PN has talked about sustainability and re-inventing itself. If it cannot see that what it is doing flies in the face of that, then there truly is a long road ahead.  The people that are being completely disrespected by the party (whether you agree with the style of reporting or not) poured out blood, sweat and tears into their employer – the PN- for years. And this is how they are rewarded? It’s downright awful and inhumane. If the PN had said that it simply could not afford to hold the mass meeting, and at the same time, not afford to pay its employees, then the situation would have been different. But to waste thousands of euros on a party no one really cares about, while trampling all over loyal employees (many rats have already jumped from the sinking ship), is just out of order. Come on new breed PN, get your act together and get your priorities right.