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	<title>Open Malta &#8211; Amphora Media</title>
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		<title>Open Malta: A New Political Data Transparency Platform By Amphora Media</title>
		<link>https://www.amphora.media/2026/05/open-malta-political-finance-data</link>
					<comments>https://www.amphora.media/2026/05/open-malta-political-finance-data#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Julian]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2026 08:33:35 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Investigations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[direct orders]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Open Malta]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Political donations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[transparency]]></category>
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					<description><![CDATA[Built by Amphora Media, Open Malta is a free, public platform that brings Malta's political finance data into one place, so journalists, researchers, and the taxpaying public can see clearly how money moves through the political system.]]></description>
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<p class="has-small-font-size"><strong>By Daiva Repečkaitė, Sabrina Zammit, Evy Coeckelbergs and Julian Bonnici</strong></p>



<p>In Malta, 99% of political donation sources go undisclosed. The government regularly awards public contracts without a competitive tender process. Ministers&#8217; asset declarations are being pulled from public view. And the data that does exist sits scattered across disparate government portals, with no single point of accountability.</p>



<h1 class="wp-block-heading"><strong><a href="https://open.amphora.media/">Open Malta exists to change that.</a></strong></h1>



<p><strong>Built by Amphora Media, <a href="https://open.amphora.media/">Open Malta is a free, public platform</a> that brings Malta&#8217;s political finance data into one place, so journalists, researchers, and the taxpaying public can see clearly how money moves through the political system.</strong></p>



<p><strong>In its first version, Open Malta covers political donations, direct orders, campaign expenses, social media spending, and asset declarations.&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p><strong>It will be continuously updated and expanded with new datasets over time. You can support our work over here.</strong></p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="800" height="600" src="https://www.amphora.media/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/04/MALTA-MONEY-800x600.jpg" alt="MALTA MONEY" class="wp-image-2077" srcset="https://www.amphora.media/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/04/MALTA-MONEY-800x600.jpg 800w, https://www.amphora.media/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/04/MALTA-MONEY-600x450.jpg 600w, https://www.amphora.media/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/04/MALTA-MONEY-400x300.jpg 400w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></figure>



<h1 class="wp-block-heading"><span style="text-decoration: underline">What&#8217;s on the platform?</span></h1>



<p>Open Malta builds on the Integrity Watch platform, originally hosted by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation and developed in collaboration with Transparency International, and refreshes all of that data to the most recent available filings. It also adds two major new datasets.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline">Direct Orders:</span></strong></h2>



<p><strong>Open Malta provides the first-ever public repository of </strong><a href="https://www.amphora.media/2026/04/malta-direct-orders-tenders-abela-muscat-gonzi-billion"><strong>direct orders</strong></a><strong>, an uncompetitive public procurement mechanism regularly used by the government</strong>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The current platform carries all direct orders published from 2022 to today. The data from Amphora Media&#8217;s full 15-year investigation will be included over the coming weeks.</p>



<p><strong>Search:</strong> search by year and by <a href="https://www.amphora.media/2026/04/malta-ministry-direct-orders-tenders-billions-awarded-contract">authority</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline">Social Media Ads:</span></strong></h2>



<p><strong>A new feature includes political social media advertising by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p>Over 9,900 ads run by Partit Laburista (PL), Partit Nazzjonalista (PN), and their respective candidates over the covered period have been collected.</p>



<p>The figures, drawn from Meta&#8217;s Ad Transparency database, come with a caveat: Meta doesn&#8217;t publish exact spending, only ranges. At the upper bound, the two parties and their candidates spent up to €1,413,130; the midpoint estimate is €911,167, and the floor is €407,588.</p>



<p>The data was collected from Meta&#8217;s archive. Political advertising stopped in October 2025 when Meta banned political advertising across the EU following new EU rules. Google made a similar decision, removing the EU from its Google Ads Transparency Centre and from political ad-serving on YouTube. The dataset will be updated if either platform reverses course.</p>



<p><strong>Search:</strong> by party, candidate, year, and election.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline">Declarations:</span></strong></h2>



<p>MPs&#8217; declared assets, bank and cash deposits, investments, and employment. Sorted by Alphabetical order.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline">Political Donations:&nbsp;</span></strong></h2>



<p>Includes all political party donations submitted to the Electoral Commission from 2016 to 2025. 99% of donation sources are <a href="https://www.amphora.media/2026/05/pl-pn-political-donations-finance-unknown-millions-donors">undisclosed</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You can search by party and by donation band.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline">Campaign Expenses:</span></strong></h2>



<p>Per <a href="https://www.amphora.media/2026/05/maltas-electoral-commission-arbiter-or-gatekeeper">the Electoral Commission, </a>candidate expenses are only published for a two-week window after each election, and the Commission has refused to provide data outside that window. This dataset will be updated following the 2026 general election.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" width="800" height="600" src="https://www.amphora.media/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/05/Open-Malta-Picture-800x600.png" alt="" class="wp-image-2252" srcset="https://www.amphora.media/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/05/Open-Malta-Picture-800x600.png 800w, https://www.amphora.media/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/05/Open-Malta-Picture-600x450.png 600w, https://www.amphora.media/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2026/05/Open-Malta-Picture-400x300.png 400w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /></figure>



<h1 class="wp-block-heading"><span style="text-decoration: underline"><a href="https://www.daphne.foundation/en/donate">Support our work, be part of our community</a></span></h1>



<p>Malta’s transparency is shrinking.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Robert Abela has moved to withhold ministers’ asset declarations from the public after the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life publicly expressed concern about missing declarations.</p>



<p>The vast majority of political donations remain anonymous. And public procurement records are scattered across government datasets, with no one responsible for stitching them together.</p>



<p>Open Malta is our attempt to stitch it together, to give the public a clear, consolidated view of how political money moves in Malta.</p>



<p>We can only do this with your support. Back the project <a href="https://www.daphne.foundation/en/donate">here</a>.</p>



<p></p>
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