“This article was undoubtedly released to raise alarm and damage the PN as much as possible. Although the debt is significant, a lot of work took place in recent years to stem its growth, to ensure workers were all paid and to start eating into this debt.”

Nationalist MP Karl Gouder, the Chief Operating Officer of the PN’s media wing Media.Link, also denied the report’s allegation, attributed to a source who used to militate in the party and is privy to the financial situation, that the PN’s media lost €2 million in 2019 alone.

“I will not go into the figures regarding the party, however I am pretty sure that’s totally fake,” he said. “What’s for sure is that the insinuation that Media.link lost €2 million in 2019 is totally and factually incorrect. Useless spreading fake news when you do not know the facts.”

Gouder’s predecessor Pierre Portelli said the financial situation in Media.Link was “a long way away” from the picture portrayed in the MaltaToday report.

“In 2018, we managed to reduce NET TV’s losses by practically half a million euro while workers were reduced as part of our restructuring process. Meanwhile, we are honouring our obligations.”

“While I understand that the party and media had to shoulder expensive costs of the 2019 elections in the second half of the year (when I was no longer there), I cannot understand how the debt exploded as mentioned in the article. This is another in a series of articles intended to destroy the Opposition and protect the status quo in the country.”