The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation has linked up with anti-corruption global civil society organisation Transparency International to launch Integrity Watch Malta, a user-friendly interactive database to provide an overview of political party donations and MPs’ declarations of wealth and deposits in Malta.

This is part of Transparency International’s Integrity Watch 3.0 project, developed for the prevention, detection, and reduction of political corruption in 16 EU countries.

From data collected in Malta, the lack of transparency in the financing of political parties is evident, as the sources of almost 99% of all donations to political parties between 2016 and 2019 remain undisclosed to the public, though they are known to the political parties themselves, the foundation said.

Over €13 million is attributed to “anonymous donors”, while only €192,019 is credited to identified donors.

"This means that the public has no way of knowing who is behind these donations and the reasons behind these donors’ generosity."

Giving an example, the foundation observed that between 2016 and 2019, the Nationalist Party received over €5,074,939 in unattributed donations, while it only had two named donors who between them donated over €39,000.

On the other hand, the Labour Party received over €4,147,648 in unattributed donations, with only 12 named donors who between them donated €163,019.

By clicking on the graphs or lists on Integrity Watch Malta, users can rank, sort, and filter the individual politicians’ wealth and deposits declarations, as well as the donations given to the political parties, which are separated into donations not exceeding €50, donations not exceeding €500, donations exceeding €500 but not €7,000, and donations over €7,000.

Integrity Watch is the leading online hub that monitors integrity in political decision-making across Europe. It collects and harmonises hard-to-access data into searchable platforms, allowing watchdogs, journalists and officials to keep office holders in check.