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[Live-blog] Simon Busuttil: 'Citizens deserve a government with a social conscience'
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil delivers the Nationalist Party’s take on Budget 2017, presented last week
24 October 2016, 6:48pm
Miriam Dalli
Miriam Dalli
Once again, Busuttil claimed that every time that the spotlight is turned on the government “stories appear in the media” to divert attention.
The government has appointed an inquiry following MaltaToday’s report into the CapitalOne police investigation – a story that was revealed by the newspaper along with a UK journalist. Busuttil once again stated that Beppe Fenech Adami had denied all.
Busuttil said the government should have opened inquiries to investigate all the scandals that underwent under these three years.
He then went on to raise a number of questions: “Is it true that the file passed on to MaltaToday was a police file? If true, how did it end up in the newspaper’s hands? Is it true that the file was requested in April? Is true that it was requested by an assistant police commissioner? The state’s tools are being used to intimidate the Opposition … to shut it up: this is a fascist act of a dangerous government which is not good for a democratic country.”
On Panama: “This scandal will not go away, no matter how hard to try. The only way is to fire Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. This is now stuck in people’s minds … a man told me that every time he sees Konrad Mizzi he imagines him wearing a Panama hat.”
Busuttil says that Joseph Muscat himself should resign after Mizzi and Schembri were caught with companies in Panama: “The problem is no longer called ‘Konrad Mizzi’ and ‘Keith Schembri’, but ‘Joseph Muscat’ – his failure to take action means that he is now an accomplice. Even Mizzi told the court that questions on the independent audit should be diverted to the Prime Minister.
“We don’t even know to whom E-grant belongs … but I know that we will get to know this in due time.”
He says that a resident of Family Minister Michael Farrugia’s district received a phone call asking whether they had “any recommendations”: “This is a corrupt mentality … it’s not a matter of laughter; In health? People waiting for medical imaging appointment receive phone calls from Castille informing them that their appointment has been pushed forward.”
“I’m now in a position to reveal that, in case of an emergency, entitled ‘external emergency plan’, the report mentions evacuation of workers and residents, but we do not know what the procedures are.
“We do not know which residents would be evacuated or what the plan is. There is a section that should focus on an emergency plan that is meant to be sent to residents, in case of an emergency. Instead, this plan that should be sent to residents is just an empty page.”
Busuttil said the PN would also publish an updated political vision on the environment.
He criticised government’s partnership with Vitals Global Healthcare saying that public hospitals would belong to a company whose owners are unknown.
”We are the best in Europe, in obesity. This is becoming a serious problem for those suffering with obesity but also for the country. Why hasn’t the fight against obesity been made a priority?”
He elicits laughter from the government benches after saying that “several salesmen are doing less deliveries” – the joke is based on his description of Muscat as “a salesman, selling passports”; he adds: “I don’t know how many deliveries our prime minister is doing.”
He says students are suffering too, many missing lectures because they arrive late.
“A mother of three has contacted me, expressing her concern that the landlord has informed her that he wants to increase the rent; The family lives on her husband’s earnings, who earns €1,100.”
“Isn’t it obvious that questions and suspicions are raised when one tries to understand why the government would bind itself to buy from a more expensive source, whilst switching off the interconnector?
“A Nationalist government would commit itself to buy electricity from the cheapest source.”
“The government is also flirting with excise duty … a method which reminds us a lot of Alfred Sant … It has also taxed us more to shower … there must be some waste problem; trust me, that problem is not coming from this end.”
He says that the Labour government was lucky, and the budget was possible because of “a good economic climate worldwide”.
It served as a preamble to the opening of his speech, explaining that his speech would be focusing on the people’s needs: “There is a pregnant mother who has written to the diabetes parliamentary committee, urging the government to provide her with a monitoring machine that helps her control her condition.”
Before the start of Busuttil’s address, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela briefed the House of Representatives on this morning’s plane crash at the Gudja airport. You can follow this in a separate report on maltatoday.com.mt