A YouTube video about pornography channels on IPTV cost the Nationalist Party’s treasurer his job last week, but not everything is as it seems.

When Antoine Zammit was seen asking for advice on how to access the adult channels on an IPTV box, many assumed he was asking for his own benefit, but the former PN treasurer has told Lovin Malta that this was not the case.

Zammit, who runs a computer repair store cheekily billed as ‘The Mater of Computers’, said he published the video on behalf of one of his clients, a Maltese IPTV box supplier.

A few months ago, this client informed Zammit that the adult channels weren’t working on their boxes and, after trying and failing to solve the problem himself, the computer technician sent an email to the German developers who created the IPTV boxes.

However, Zammit said the developers couldn’t understand English properly, so he decided to film a video to show them exactly what the problem was and publish it on YouTube because the file would have been too large to send via email. He confirmed that the video was actually filmed by his wife.

“The video did the trick. [The developers] sent a patch and the problem was solved,” he said. “This has been taken out of context, and my mistake was that I didn’t delete the video or change its privacy settings.”

Zammit said he resigned as soon as ONE published the video because he felt a sense of responsibility for his mistake.

“No one forced me to resign but that was the honourable thing to do,” he said, adding that PN leader Adrian Delia, deputy leader Robert Arrigo and secretary general Clyde Puli all offered him their support after he stepped down.

The role of treasurer is a particularly sensitive one as it involves taking care of a political party’s accounts and donations. As per the party financing law, a treasurer is personally liable to a fine of up to €20,000 if the Electoral Commission finds irregularities in the party’s donations.

However, Zammit dismissed suggestions that the party will struggle to appoint a new treasurer because everyone would baulk at the responsibilities.

“People are appointed and replaced (Imut papa u jagħmlu ieħor),” he said, adding that the party’s plan to repay its significant debts is on track.

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