PN won’t disclose terms and conditions of Zaren Vassallo loan repayment

The Nationalist Party won't be disclosing the terms and conditions at which it is replaying a loan it took out from one of its benefactors, construction magnate Nazzareno Vassallo.

As was confirmed by former PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier last February, Vassallo's construction firm issued a €250,000 loan to party company Media.Link Communications to assist its cash flow problems back in July 2012.

Questions have now been raised as to how the PN plans to repay the quarter-of-a-million loan when its debts run into at least €8 million.

"The financial interests of the party's commercial entities are matters of commercial sensitivity and, as you may understand, our policy is not to comment publicly on such matters," PN leader Simon Busuttil said when asked by MaltaToday to state the terms at which it is repaying a loan it took out from Vassallo.

The PN's financial woes were confirmed when the new party leadership was forced to carry out a restructuring programme in the hope that its commercial entities would start sustaining themselves once again. Among others, it has decided to outsource the printing of its newspapers while part-timers at the newsroom were made redundant.

MaltaToday had been sued for libel by Borg Olivier over a report in January which stated that Vassallo, once a Nationalist mayor for Mosta, had approved a budgeted sum of €350,000 for expenses incurred for the PN's electoral campaign through MFCC Ltd (Malta Fairs Convention Centre).

Then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi had later confirmed that the €250,000 loan from a company owned by Vassallo was a commercial arrangement. Refuting allegations of donations, Gonzi had said the PN was "paying back" the loan.

He had also insisted that the PN did not feel in any way obliged to Vassallo or his companies, as, like any other commercial company, the PN had to take loans to sustain its commercial operations.

Vassallo Builders Group was involved in the construction of the new PN headquarters and later chosen as the civil works contractor for BWSC in 2009.