Former President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca has called on the Labour Party to apologise to people who bought into its purported moral credentials, MaltaToday has reported.

She called on those who have the party's interest at heart to embark on a soul searching exercise, to find out and establish what the party truly stands for, whether it is "simply power-hungry and merely directed by surveys rather than by political, social and moral values," the newspaper reports.

She spoke of the latest allegations tying the PL government to offshore companies and major projects. This refers to the revelations that Cheng Chen owns Macbridge. Macbridge was named as one of the two companies set up to pay the equivalent of some €5,000 per day into secret offshore Panama companies which were owned by the OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and then Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi. Cheng Chen was a consultant with a firm called Accenture, and he played a key role in a €320 million deal which saw Chinese state-owned company Shanghai Electric Power buy a third of Enemalta in 2014.

She also praised the government for the changes made that strengthened the institutions, but highlighted that more work is needed to ensure they are guided by principles of transparency, accountability and good governance.

She also spoke of the need for the country to reflect on why people are losing trust in the institutions as well as the country's leaders.