Chat transcripts between Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech are a further sign that political party financing laws need to be overhauled to better insulate politics from business, the Green Party believes.

ADPD deputy chairperson Sandra Gauci noted how Fenech, a businessman accused of complicity in murder, fostered relationships with backbench politicians like Cutajar to top-level ones like Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri, as well as regulators like Johann Buttigieg and Heathcliff Farrugia.

Fenech is not only: developer Joseph Portelli has boasted of how he gives money to both major parties, Gauci noted, and minister Silvio Schembri has not said whether he is paying rent for his constituency offices in Siġġiewi and Luqa, she said. 

Those offices are owned by developers Anton Camilleri and Paul Attard, both of whom sit on the Malta Developers Association board.

ADPD General Secretary Ralph Cassar said that Malta’s party financing laws need to be improved.

It makes no sense to allow parties to self-regulate through an Electoral Commission made up entirely of members of the two main parties, Cassar argued.

Cassar listed a number of suggestions to improve financing laws, including limiting individual donations to €5,000 annually, rather than €25,000; granting state aid to all parties that obtain at least 1% of votes in general, MEP or local council elections, with aid based on votes obtained; and ending the loophole that allows political donations to be funnelled through party-owned stations.

The latter allows parties to disguise donations and not declare them on their accounts, Cassar said.

“This is nothing but money laundering,” he said.

Cassar noted that in the leaked chats, Cutajar had acknowledged that “everyone” in politics had their noses in the proverbial trough.

“There seem to be enough funds to satisfy MPs’ greed but no funds for decent salaries for nurses, teachers and other employees,” he noted.

Gauci said ADPD was in favour of making MPs full-time, as that would professionalise parliament and remove their overdependence on the businss world.

“Members of Parliament should not be allowed to carry out any other work while in office,” Gauci said. “This should also include Members of Parliament being precluded from sitting on authorities and commissions’ boards both in the public and private sector.”