Party Financing Law will retain political money laundering

In reaction to the report of the Council of Europe’s Greco (Group of States against Corruption), AD – The Green Party said that it was unacceptable that the Maltese Government was proposing that party and non-party members would be distinguished from each other as regards donations to parties, AD also agreed with Greco that the proposed ?10,000 threshold for the publication of the names of other donors is to high.
 
Michael Briguglio, AD Chairperson said: “Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party believes that donations in excess of Euro 5,000 – irrespective of where they come from – should be declared by political parties and those over Euro 40,000 should be made illegal. In the case of state financing of political parties, we suggested that the state should give all political parties 3 Euro for every vote obtained on a national level, during a general or a European election. “State financing of political parties has been tried and tested in established democracies within the European Union”.”State financing provides transparency and can be coupled with strict regulations such as forcing political parties to have audited accounts. Besides, it is wholly unfair that only large political parties benefit from state funds as is happening now. One should also keep in mind that commercial companies, both private ones and those owned by the politcal  parties, donate money to the parties without any control of any sort”.

“AD has been speaking on the need of party financing regulations since 1989, and it had submitted its latest proposals to previous speaker Louis Galea back in 2008, but to date there has been no reform. The fact that the parliamentary select committee is not meeting does not help matters, and only helps sustain the system of political money laundering by PNPL”.