Adrian Delia donates €100,000 to PN fundraiser, CEO raises €120,000
The Nationalist Party to announce its accounts on Monday
Former PN leader Adrian Delia donated €100,000 to the party during its December fundraiser early on Sunday evening, more than double what it had collected in the event until that point.
He handed a cheque to PN leader Alex Borg amid applause and a big hug from Borg.
Delia thanked supporters for their ‘phenomenal’ response.
"The tougher the challenge, the harder the work," he later said on Facebook.
Delia is no newcomer to major donations to the party, although this was his biggest to date. His donation came a day before the PN is due to publish its long-overdue accounts – right on the 100th day of Alex Borg taking over the party leadership. Publication of the accounts in the first 100 days was one of Borg's campaign promises.
Late into the marathon session, PN CEO Sabine Agius Cabourdin announced she had raised more than €120,000 for the marathon.
Agius Cabourdin said last month that an auditing committee was working “gas down” to honour Borg's promise.
The PN last published its full financial statements for 2020 and is yet to submit and publish the accounts for the following years.
It has offered various explanations for the long delay. When the issue was first flagged by Times of Malta in October 2023, it initially attributed the delay to a lack of human resources. Later, under then-leader Bernard Grech, it pointed to its auditor, stating that the party had completed its part of the work and was waiting for the auditor to review and approve the accounts according to his schedule.
One of the most significant revelations expected from the publication of the overdue audited accounts is the true scale of the party's debt, which is yet unknown.
Both the major political parties were holding fund-raising campaigns on Sunday. As of 9.35pm the PN had raised €275,589 and the PL €577, 161.