PN treasurer’s election cancelled over lack of due diligence

The Nationalist Party’s executive committee has had to cancel an election it held this week for its new treasurer, after the secretary-general breached a Statute rule for due diligence.

The PN executive held an election for a new treasurer, Mario Ellul, but the election was then cancelled when former PN leader Adrian Delia and Paula Mifsud Bonnici observed that Article 136 of the PN statute was not observed.

The article lays down that any such candidate for the post of any PN organ or office, must be vetted through a due diligence process.

Secretary-general Francis Zammit Dimech was said to have failed to carry out any due diligence on Ellul.

But the election for Ellul was already over when Delia and Mifsud Bonnici pointed out the error.

After the executive voted Ellul to the post, the matter was brought to the attention of electoral commissioner Peter Fenech, who proceeded to cancel the election and destroy the votes. Another election will be held next week.

The PN found itself without a treasurer for the second time in as many months in September 2019 after incumbent Antoine Zammit resigned. Zammit resigned after he was filmed complaining with an IPTV supplier over access to adult channels on an IPTV box being barred. The video depicts Zammit in what appears to be a workshop, using an IPTV box to show the supplier how access to porn channels was blocked. Zammit owns a computer shop in Qormi, which is advertised as ‘the Mater Dei Of Computers’.

In the video, Zammit complains that a recent update had disabled the adult channels and asks the supplier to send the code by email.

But apart from the embarrassing situation Zammit found himself in as a result of his porn complaint, the video implicates the shop owner in illegality.