Opposition leader: “I did not create this mess and I want to clean it up”

Simon Busuttil, the Opposition leader, said this morning that he has asked retired European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello to form and lead a commission which will examine the funding structure of the Nationalist Party and the finances of its politicians.

“I did not create this mess and I want to clean it up,” he told journalists.

He said that the Nationalist Party had received a million euros in donation last year, and that they were declared to the Electoral Commission. Of those, more than €900,000 were individual small sums of less than €50 each.

The Labour Party has not yet been able to register as a political party under the new law of its own making, because it has not yet collated details on donations so as to be able to declare them to the Electoral Commission.