Opposition leader Adrian Delia has denied lying about the state of the PN’s unpaid water and electricity bills, saying all outstanding tariffs are not owed by the party itself but by its media house and its locality clubs.
Delia gave a statement to Lovin Malta yesterday after this website published a legal letter that the state’s utility billing company ARMS had sent then-PN secretary general Clyde Puli last November.
ARMS told Puli that the PN’s media house Media.Link owed just under €3.5 million and that it would pursue legal avenues if it failed to settle. A few days letter, Media.Link’s legal team wrote to ARMS to acknowledge this debt and to request a meeting to discuss a “workable” payment scheme.
ARMS' legal letter to Media.Link
The response by Media.Link's legal team
Delia denied that this letter meant he lied when he said on Xarabank that the PN doesn’t owe a cent for water and electricity and that Prime Minister Robert Abela had lied when he told a recent press conference that it owes around €4 million in utility tariffs.
At no point in his Xarabank interview did Delia acknowledge the existence of the utility tariffs owed by Media.Link, which is owned by the Nationalist Party and which runs NET TV, NET FM and Netnews.com.mt.
This is Delia’s full statement:
“The Nationalist Party categorically refutes the allegations being made by Lovin Malta in the article entitled Documents Prove Delia Is the one Lying About PN’s Electricity Bills, Contrary To His Claims On Xarabank. As already confirmed by Dr Adrian Delia, Leader of Nationalist Party during yesterday’s edition of Xarabank, there are no outstanding bills in the name of Partit Nazzjonalista due to ARMS Ltd.”
“The Party stands by that argument. The only bills that may be outstanding are recent ones relating directly to its various locality clubs, which bills are settled directly by the various PN committees. In your article you mention that Media.Link owes outstanding bills to ARMS, Media.Link Company Limited is a separate commercial and legal entity from Partit Nazzjonalista and therefore trying to claim in your article that those debts are of the Nationalist Party has the only scope of being spiteful, not truthful and a blatant lie.”
“The party at this stage reserves all its rights at law over this article and will take all steps necessary to protect its name and that of its Leader. However one begs the question as to how did Prime Minister Robert Abela obtain sensitive and private commercial information on an ARMS client in total disregard the country’s Laws.”
“All this seems to be well timed to coincide with the arguments being put forward by the Opposition whereby it is challenging the Government to reduce electricity bills by 50% to help households and businesses during these challenging times with the COVID-19 pandemic that has given a great blow to our economy. It is obvious that the Government does not want or cannot reduce utility bills since its hands are tied with another sleazy corrupt agreement. The Opposition however will not be stopped by these unfounded articles and will keep on fighting for the good of the Maltese and Gozitan people and businesses.”
