Bonġu News on Monday 25 September 2023

Nationalists ahead of Labour in latest election survey

The Nationalists are ahead of Labour in the latest election survey conducted by MaltaSurvey.

If an election were to be held tomorrow, the PN (35.3%) would receive a marginal 0.4% more votes than the PL (34.9%). 15.8% of respondents said they would not vote.

The green party ADPD would receive 4.9% of the votes – slightly more than all other small parties combined.

Prime Minister Robert Abela tops the party leaders’ trust ratings, with 36%. Only 27.1% of respondents trust Opposition Leader Bernard Grech the most.

Bernard Grech: ‘Labour mired in scandals and fraud’

“The Labour Party is mired in scandals and fraud”, Bernard Grech said on Sunday.

The Opposition Leader indicated that the benefit abuse scheme surrounding the Labour Party is wider than revealed so far.

Grech said that Robert Abela knew about this racket for more than two years and tried to hide it.

He said there were many vote-buying schemes that he hopes to be able to talk about in the near future.

ITS CEO and wife benefitted from free luxury cruise trip

The CEO of the Institute of Tourism Studies, Pierre Fenech, and his wife benefitted from a free Viking Cruises trip.

The Shift News reported that this happened at a time when Viking was negotiating a deal to send staff to train at the ITS.

Fenech admitted that he had accepted the invitation after obtaining clearance from the Tourism Ministry.

He insisted the trip was “no gift” but included “meetings with Viking Cruises on possible collaborations in the future”.

The Shift pointed out that Fenech’s FOI declaration omitted the fact that he spent five days on board the luxurious Viking Saturn.

Independent politician Arnold Cassola has asked the standards commissioner to investigate Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo.

Cassola said that Bartolo should never have approved such a gift that constitutes a conflict of interest.