The Nationalist party registered a deficit of €607,279 in 2019, according to its latest published accounts.  

The PN approved its 2019 accounts in February 2021 and filed them with the electoral commission that same year.

However, the electoral commission only published them earlier this month - more than a year later. It did not say why it took so long to make the audited accounts public. 

The Labour Party’s financial documents have not been published by the commission yet.

Parties are legally obliged to file audited accounts each year. 

It is not known whether either party has filed audited accounts for 2020 or 2021.    

Meanwhile, the PN’s 2019 accounts show the PN registered a surplus of €326,132 that year. However, that surplus becomes a deficit of more than €600,000 once an impairment of €928,258 is factored in. The impairment relates to amounts advanced to companies and entities linked to the PN - mainly its media arm, Media.Link, and a travel agency it owns.    

Months after the 2019 accounts were approved by the party, PN deputy leader Robert Arrigo had claimed that the party had turned a profit and was financially stable. 

Media arm and election spending

The accounts report says that the PN injected €14.3 million into its media operations by the end of 2019, up nearly €1 million over the previous year.  

2019 was an election year, with voters going to the polls in March to vote in European Parliament elections. That electoral campaign cost the PN €316,612 to run. 

On future developments, the PN’s administrative council said it considered its resources at the end of 2019 to be sufficient to sustain its operations for the year ahead. It also said it expected “positive results for the foreseeable future”. 

Party leader Bernard Grech, who took over the PN in the latter half of 2020, recently revealed that the PN has debts totalling €32 million.

Fundraising 

The accounts show that the PN made just over €150,000 in fundraising income in 2019 but spent more than that amount - €191,088 - on organising those fundraisers and other party events. 

The party explained that by noting that fundraising events "are principally organised with the objective of promulgating party campaigns". 

Memberships and merchandise down 

Party memberships and subscriptions were marginally down in 2019, the audited accounts showed. The PN registered €6,223 less income from party membership dues between 2018 and 2019, bringing in €112,658 in the year under review.  

It also failed to generate a substantial income from the sale of party merchandise like t-shirts and flags, registering just €428 in profit from these sales.  

The PN’s so-called kazini, or party clubs, raked in €98,979 in rental income for the party in 2019. The party also secured €175,000 through the termination of lease agreements from party clubs.  

It also registered €52,000 in earnings from the sale of a property. This is down from the €133,499 registered the previous year.  

PN properties and other fixed holdings were valued at just shy of €16 million in the year under review, with such assets appreciating by €1.5 million over 2018.

Parliament also proved to be a source of income, with the PN registering some €103,000 in funds for parliamentary research from the House.  

€26,000 a month in loan repayments

The PN also made substantial loan repayments of €444,196 in 2019, intended to cover bank dues. It also registered €485,300 in bank loans.  

The 2019 accounts highlight two pending loans the PN had at the time, which constitute a debt of €2.5 million.  

One loan must be repaid by 2034 in monthly repayments in excess of €16,000. This was taken out by the party to finance the “restructuring of party operations". 

The second loan, taken out for the same purpose as the first, has to be repaid in €10,000 monthly instalments until 2025.  

The PN also borrowed from the public through its so-called cedoli scheme. That scheme constitutes a total borrowing of €5.1 million, repayable over a 10-year period at an interest rate of 4%.  

COVID impact

In its notes accompanying the financial statements, the PN warned that the COVID-19 pandemic risked substantially impacting its activities. 

The pandemic reached Malta in March of 2020 and was in full swing by February 2021, when the PN approved the accounts in question. 

“There are uncertainties on both the duration of the crisis and the extent of the impact on the economy. The extent to which COVID-19 impacts the party will depend on future development and the continued severity of the pandemic over the coming months,” the accounts read. 

“The administrative council is continuously monitoring the situation in order to ensure that the party continues to generate sufficient funds to ensure that the party can continue in operation. In this respect, the party had, to date, managed to collect sufficient funds to ensure that this is the case,” the report reads.  

Its total liabilities were declared at €9.8 million, including €8.7 million in borrowing. 

However, these were offset against €17.6 million in total assets.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.