The Labour Party said Monday it does not believe the debt figures the Nationalist Party released today.
Where did the PN hide more than €20 million in debt?, the PL asked in a statement,
The Nationalist Party does not want to explain how, in less than six months, it went from declaring a debt of €32 million to now quoting €11 million.
It was the PN's own Secretary General who, in several interviews, stated that €32 million was the official figure of the Nationalist Party's debt, the PL said.
On 17 June, Charles Bonello stated that the debt was "€32.5 million as declared by the Leader," and three days later, on 20 June, said that this "remained the same."
What the Nationalist Party Leader announced today, casts serious doubt on where more than €20 million in debt has disappeared from the PN's accounts. Those who are not credible in managing their Party's finances can never be trusted to manage the country's finances, the PL said.
'Limitless hypocrisy from Labour', PN says
In reaction, the PN said that it has submitted its financial accounts in full compliance with the law and in exactly the same manner as reported by the Labour Party itself in the accounts it published last week.
"Opposition Leader Alex Borg has kept his word and published the PN's audited financial statements for the period 2021 to 2024 within one hundred days of assuming office as Leader of PN."
"The Labour Party is lying and acting hypocritically by criticising the PN for submitting its financial accounts in accordance with the law and in the same way that the Labour Party itself reported in the accounts it published last week."
"The law is clear and, as the Labour Party itself has done, the finances of subsidiary companies do not form part of a party's accounts." The PN said that it has always believed in transparency, and the accumulated debt of the Party and its commercial companies is in the public domain.
"This stands in stark contrast to the Labour Party, which continues to conceal the debts of its commercial companies. Similarly, the Prime Minister has continued to hide his own declaration of assets and those of his Cabinet colleagues, and has still not published the expenses of his campaign to become Leader of the Labour Party, despite six years having passed."
"This is the same Prime Minister whose only legacy will be that, during his tenure, he will have tripled the country's debt to no less than €14 billion. The Prime Minister and the Labour Government would do far better to focus on the debt they are burdening the country with."