The PN’s due diligence report only serves to confirm that both Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech are one and the same and are not fit to lead the party, let alone the country, the Labour Party said on Friday. 

The due diligence report was published on Thursday evening.

In a press conference on Friday, the PL noted that the report had failed to stipulate whether the duo contesting for the PN’s leadership post were in fact fit to contest for the role, contrasting with the position of the PN’s Candidate’s Commission, which had stipulated that both Delia and Grech are “idoneous” to lead the party. 

The report refers to that conclusion as “premature” and “baseless”, the PL said. 

The party also noted the imbalance between Delia and Grech’s reports, with PL President Ramona Attard noting that Delia had 26 pages dedicated to him, while Grech only had 2 pages of analysis on him. 

Attard also said that the report is defective because it only relies on media reports. 

“The only conclusion we can reach from this report is that Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech are one and the same”, Attard said before noting that they both already have baggage before having any type of political responsibility. 

“If the due diligence commission cannot put our minds at rest that the two candidates are idoneous to serve as party leader and Opposition leader, how can they put the PN’s members’ or the public’s minds at rest”, she added. 

MEP Alex Agius Saliba meanwhile said that the supposed experts behind this report had prefaced the same report by saying that they had a lack of time and resources. 

He noted that they mentioned misgivings about the financial situation of both Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech, misgivings which he said are basic responsibilities in a democratic country.  

The report in fact notes that both Grech and Delia lied about their tax payments, Agius Saliba said.

Agius Saliba quoted from the report, noting how it says that “Dr Grech did not provide the panel with a complete picture of his tax issues.” 

“This Bernard Grech, even at a stage where he is still a candidate for the leadership of the PN, a candidate who could be the Opposition Leader of this country, has already started misleading people in his own party on some so basic”, Agius Saliba noted. 

“Imagine, since he lied to an internal commission, how capable Bernard Grech is of misleading the Maltese and Gozitan electorate”, he concluded.