The total cost of this year’s Isle of MTV will remain under wraps after Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo refused to provide the sum in a parliamentary question. 

Bartolo cited commercial confidentiality, a common practice he has employed for major multi-million contracts under his ministry, including MTA’s lucrative deal with Manchester United. 

However, the figure has been revealed in parliament in the past. 

In 2015, then-Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis revealed the government spent €1,395,249 in 2014, also providing the figures from every year between 2007 to 2013. 

Meanwhile, Bartolo’s Cabinet colleague, Julia Farrugia Portelli, had once criticised the then-PN government for keeping the figures under wraps while working as a journalist.

What do you think of the refusal to divulge the figure?