Opposition leader Bernard Grech learnt about the €500,000 donation presented by PN MP Adrian Delia on behalf of Catco Group Capital Investment only after it was presented to id-Dar tal-Providenza, a PN spokesperson told The Malta Independent.

Following the large donation, id-Dar tal-Providenza said that is conducting a vetting process on the donation, as it does with all donations over €5,000.

The Malta Independent sent questions to the Nationalist Party, asking it to confirm if Grech knew that Delia was going to present the donation, whether Grech spoke to Delia about it afterwards and to declare if the PN is comfortable with Delia working with the Catco group.

“Bernard Grech is strongly against the politicisation of such fund raising events,” the PN spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said that Grech became aware of the donation “after it was presented and from subsequent reports in the media.”

Further to this, the spokesperson told this newsroom that the PN Leader sought further information from his predecessor, Delia, about it.

“Bernard Grech sought clarifications from Adrian Delia about this donation and his involvement with the Group. Delia reiterated what he has already declared publicly.”

“Bernard Grech further underlines that all MPs are obliged to behave in an ethical way.” 

The Malta Independent had spoken with Delia earlier this week about his role in presenting the donation.

When he was asked how he became the person to present the funds, Delia said that he knew about the financial problems id-Dar tal-Providenza was facing and was trying to approach companies in Malta that would be able to commit to donating, for example, €1,000 every six months, in order to create a structure of donations. "I then started looking at possible international companies that are in Malta or are coming to Malta as they would have large Corporate Social Responsibility budgets and I was trying to identify who is on the radar. I got to know about Catco and asked about them. There were people who knew me through football and I spoke with them. When I saw that they were talking about a large amount, instead of continuing to speak with five companies at once, I spoke to them.”

The Malta Independent had also asked him whether he had conducted any due diligence prior to accepting to present their donation. He said that he had asked an audit firm to conduct an enhanced due diligence exercise on the Chairman of Catco Group Capital Investment prior to the €500,000 donation. But in terms of a source of funds check, he said that id-Dar tal-Providenza is responsible for conducting it, he had said.

The Chairman of Catco Group, Abdullah Alokla, said when speaking with Times of Malta, that he thought that “Delia is the head of Dar tal-Providenza”, being oblivious to the fact that Delia was in fact the former Opposition leader, or even that he was involved in politics; and still is. Abdullah Alokla noted that had he known, he would have not allowed the presentation of the donation to take place. Attempts to contact Delia to ask him about this yesterday were unsuccessful by the time this newspaper went to print.