The Malta Labour Party has protested yet again about Bondiplus presenter Lou Bondì, bringing up the number of complaints against the director of Where’s Everybody to a record of three within one month.
MLP Secretary General Jason Micallef said yesterday night that he had written to the PBS editorial board to complain about Bondì’s “complete bias” against his party in last Monday’s programme on Labour’s budget proposals.
Despite Labour Deputy Leader Charles Mangion’s presence in the studio together with junior finance minister Tonio Fenech, Micallef insisted the programme was “heavily slanted against Labour” throughout the entire edition.
“I confirm I’ve sent a complaint to the editorial board seeking a remedy for the biased programme,” Micallef said.
On his part, presenter Lou Bondì yesterday told MaltaToday he could not understand why Micallef had chosen file his report when the route at his disposal is that of filing a complaint with the Broadcasting Authority.
Micallef has already crossed swords with Bondì over the last three weeks accusing him of his “impossibility to be impartial” towards Labour when presenting programmes about the budget as well as insisting that any invitations to party officials had to go through him.
Although Micallef gave the go-ahead for Mangion’s participation last Monday, the party was nonetheless angry at the way the presenter tackled its proposals to cut tax on overtime and restore public holidays.
What particularly irked Labour however was Bondì’s presentation of the costings of the Opposition’s proposals, based on government calculations.
“That in particular was totally out of place,” Micallef said. “Instead of asking us for the costings, he relied on the government’s estimations. You can appreciate how objective that can be.”
But Bondì was categorical about his presentation of the costings: “I said these had been government costings which I verified with expert economists. I asked Charles Mangion for his opinion and he accused them of being a ‘political frame-up’. He had every opportunity to answer the question on the costings.”
Micallef would not be drawn into the kind of remedy his party was expecting in view of the fact that he protested about the whole programme. “It’s up to the editorial board to decide,” he said.
Should the editorial board not uphold the complaint; the MLP will then ask the Broadcasting Authority to intervene.