While the government faces unprecedented anger and mass indignation at how our country is being governed, Labour thought it best to create one decoy after another in the hope that they would distract or detract from what the majority of the Maltese are up in arms about.

One such decoy is Labour’s obsession with a transparent and revolutionary form of raising funds for parties – Skema Cedoli 2016. I say Labour’s “obsession”, because in a matter of 10 days various Labour spokes persons, including the Prime Minister could not stop talking about it. One would have thought that they had more serious matters to deal with!

It is no state secret that one of Dr Busuttil’s challenges three years ago was to address the state of the party’s finances. Well here we are three years later and the party’s finances have been put on a solid footing. In the first year we stopped the haemorrhage – we eliminated what we could do without, restructured the way a number of party tools were used, maximised the output of our commercial entities while revolutionising our media which is now being run on strict commercial lines and, most importantly, increased revenue streams. We then put in place a robust 15-year financial restructuring plan, which has for over a year now seen the satisfactory performance of the party’s obligations towards the financial institutions. A great deal of hard work but terribly satisfying.

By virtue of the scheme, people who genuinely wish to help the party are able to lend the party a one-time loan of €10,000 on a voluntary basis repayable within 10 years, in exchange for four per cent interest payable per annum. It is revolutionary in that it simply does away with the idea of a “donation”. Donations are all very well and good when they come from those genuinely wishing to help; however it is pretty obvious that donations can lend themselves to the demand of a pay back when the party concerned is in government, and we are seeing evidence of this at the moment. Skema Cedoli eliminates all of that because this is not a donation, this is a loan and the lender will get the money back at the end of the scheme and getting four per cent interest per annum in the interim. 

However, when Labour saw this, they literally went berserk. We saw them first claim that the scheme goes against the party financing law; then that this is the perfect way for criminals to launder their money; and then that the Nationalist Party is bankrupt and will never pay the money back; this is all complete and utter nonsense.

Starting with the party financing law, the law is there to regulate donations. Precisely because “donors” in bad faith can claim pay backs from parties in government, it is important for this to be controlled. The law itself defines what a donation is. Donations include monetary donations, the gratuitous transfers of property, and includes loans if the terms of the loans are less favourable than normal commercial loans. And this is precisely the point. The party is accepting loans and paying four per cent interest! If the party was paying say 0.5 per cent or one per cent interest it may well be considered as a donation, but not four per cent!  So the bottom line is that this is a straightforward, bona fide loan agreement which is most certainly not against any law and neither does it attempt to go around any law. Isn’t it rich for Labour to allege that the Nationalist Party is trying to get round the party financing law when the only party that went round the law was labour. As soon as it was elected to power, Joseph Muscat as prime minister withdrew an action which the previous government had commenced to evict Labour from Australia Hall, resulting in Australia Hall and the extensive tracts of land at Pembroke worth in excess of €10 million effectively being given to Labour. It was only when that deal was done and dusted, and when the Labour Party had enriched itself to the tune of €10 million that it was convenient for Labour to pass the law on party financing. You see that is what they meant by transparency and good governance.

As far as money laundering and criminals are concerned, it may well be that Labour know a thing or two about this subject given that their previous treasurer was in fact Gaddafi’s confidant and closely associated with his millions.  In addition, according to Mr Speaker Dr Angelo Farrugia, he used to see numerous big fish go up to the fourth floor prior to the election and doing things which he says he disapproved of. Perhaps it is for this reason that Labour imagines that through Skema Cedoli the party is going to be inundated with launderers and criminals. In truth, it is pathetic to see Labour making the case that a loan agreement of €10,000 is likely to be remotely attractive to money launderers or criminals given that the loan agreement records the provenance of the funds and the loan needs to be paid by cheque drawn on a Maltese bank. This underlines the transparency of the scheme which of course throws all of Labour’s wild allegations of secrecy out of the window. I can confirm that during the past 10 days since the scheme has been opened, we have had a stream of very normal, incredibly enthusiastic people coming in through the doors of Dar Centrali wanting to help the Nationalist Party by signing up to an arm’s length  loan agreement.  Not a single money launderer in sight!

Then we had stage three of Labour’s cunning plan. When they realised that stating this scheme was the perfect one to attract launderers and criminals was pathetic, they changed tack completely and said that the Nationalist Party should be ashamed of itself because it is taking money from gullible innocent people in the knowledge that it cannot repay the loan. Let it be known that the servicing of these loans is an integral part of our financial restructuring plan. Furthermore, as much as it was public knowledge that the Nationalist Party was having difficulty with cash flows, it is equally public knowledge that the party is asset rich, owning prime properties all over Malta and Gozo worth millions. 

Having said all of the above, I cannot possibly ignore the onslaught of Minister Bartolo this week vis-à-vis Prof. Joe Bannister, chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority. The MFSA were of course fully informed about Skema Cedoli 2016, and naturally had no objections. “So, if MFSA had no objections, why don’t we have a go at Prof. Bannister” was probably Minister Bartolo’s reaction. Normal people out there are appalled at the lengths Labour will go to (I should know shouldn’t I), in this case by attempting  to throw a shadow of a doubt over the reputation of the person who chairs one of Malta’s most important authorities which regulates financial services in Malta responsible for the livelihoods of thousands of Maltese families. Have they really gone off their trolley? No wonder, Charles Mangion stepped in to try to neutralise the situation!

So the bottom line is that Skema Cedoli 2016 is a brave revolutionary method of transparent party financing, promoted by a party which truly believes in good governance and in the independence of parties. It is a scheme which involves serious, organised and structured financing, and which I hasten to add is doing very well indeed.

Dr Fenech is President of the PN executive committee