Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/662335
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 6 APRIL 2016 7 News PN will only take cheques, won't publish creditors' names for loans scheme MIRIAM DALLI THE Nationalist Party is stand- ing its ground over a decision not to publish the names of in- dividuals who come forward and participate in the 'Cedoli 2016' fundraising scheme. The scheme allows for loans of €10,000 which the PN will repay over the next 10 years at an inter- est rate of 4%. The scheme falls outside the scope of recently enacted party financing rules, which the PN says means that creditors' names need not be recorded. Insisting that the scheme was completely legal and it was not a donation, Opposition leader Si- mon Busuttil refused to commit himself to publishing the names of the party's creditors. "These are private loans. It is a legal scheme, precisely drafted for good governance in the financing of political parties. It sets an exam- ple of how parties should be financed. The scheme does away with the politi- cal minefield that comes with donations," Busut- til told MaltaToday. Reiterating that it would be a private loan, Busuttil said that the PN could not publish the names of those granting a loan to the party, just like "no one tells you what to do when you lend money to someone or someone gives you a loan". The scheme has come under fire by various quarters, including the Labour Party, who ar- gue that the PN's system of €10,000 loans raised "serious suspicions" that these had been designed to evade the controls in- troduced by the new party financing law, which caps donations from individual sources. "Best practice dictates that a public contract is necessary to regulate loans of over five years, but this scheme is anything but transparent. Does the PN want to evade this by hiding the iden- tities of its benefactors?" Justice Minister Owen Bonnici had told the press. "Is this transparency? Is the party ready to tell peo- ple that they are safe in making loans by private writing?" Other critics have suggested that the scheme risked attract- ing abuses, such as money laun- dering – a claim which Busuttil strongly rejected. "It doesn't give rise to money laundering because it is legal and we are only accepting cheques," he said, arguing that this was where due diligence came in. Busuttil said that the party would not be accepting cash. "The bank has clear rules of 'know your client' and money coming in through cheques would be certified as being 'clean money'." The PN was wracked with a reported €5 million debt at the start of 2013, and has since un- dergone radical cost-cutting internally, as well as selling off party club properties. The exact amount of debt accumulated by the PN is not known, however Bu- suttil claimed that the scheme had attracted strong interest. He would not say how many people had come for- ward and the amount of loans so far. Turning to the 'Panamagate' saga, Busuttil said this was the "biggest corrup- tion scandal ever on an international level" and that energy minis- ter Konrad Mizzi must go. "[Mossack Fonseca] is a dubious company that works with dicta- tors and ex-dictators," Busuttil said in relation to the legal firm that sells anonymous off- shore companies around the world. Some 11.5 million files from the database of the world's fourth biggest off- shore law firm have been leaked in what has been dubbed history's biggest data leak. Opposition leader Simon Busuttil insisted that the PN loan scheme will not give rise to money laundering AD: Government must address Montekristo's 'cowboy attitude' IN the wake of the accident in which a five-year-old boy was attacked by a lioness in the ille- gal zoo at Montekristo Estates, Alternattiva Demokratika con- demned the lack of serious en- forcement. 'It is unacceptable that a second child has been attacked by a zoo animal following the first attack by a tiger less than five months ago on the same premises. It has been more than evident that Montekristo Estates owners have a penchant for disregarding the rule of law in all aspects, be it buildings not covered with ME- PA permits or this illegally oper- ating zoo. This string of illegali- ties has been going on for years with successive governments dismally failing to address such a cowboy attitude,' AD spokes- person on animal welfare Simon Galea said. He added that "to add insult to injury, political activities and other public events are repeat- edly held on the same premises, giving the distinct impression that illegality can go on with impunity. A case in point is last weekend's hunting fair held at the same premises where, among other visitors, were Minister Carmelo Abela, Parliamentary Secretary Chris Agius and Op- position spokesperson Charlo Bonnici." AD chairperson Arnold Cas- sola said that while both the PN and Labour in government have shown themselves "toothless and indeed accommodating with the likes of [Montekristo Estate owner Charles] Polidano, law abiding citizens keep bearing the brunt of it all." Karl Gouder to return to Parliament SAN Giljan mayor Karl Gouder will be co-opted to Parliament to replace Albert Fenech, who resigned last week. Since Fenech was elected through a casual election in 2013 the Nationalist Party's ex- ecutive picked Gouder, who lost his seat in the last election, to replace the veteran heart sur- geon. This is the second time Gouder is being co-opted in Parliament after replacing Michael Fendo who was appointed Speaker of the House in 2010. Gouder currently occupies the role of Chief Operations Officer at the PN's media company, Me- dia.link Communciations. Fenech resigned his seat, cit- ing work commitments in his new role as head of a cardiology hospital within St Luke's. "In order to maintain my man- ual skills until the new hospital would open, I would have to travel abroad on a monthly ba- sis for a period of not less than four days in order to continue operating," Fenech wrote in his resignation letter to PN leader Simon Busuttil. In his response, Busuttil said that Fenech 's resignation devel- oped as a result of the Labour government's "senseless" deci- sion to stop him from working at Mater Dei beyond pension- able age. Karl Gouder will be filling in the seat vacated by Albert Fenech