PN leader: Government ‘short on ideas’

As the Nationalist Party campaign for the forthcoming European Parliament elections continued this evening, party leader Simon Busuttil accused government of “having no ideas at all” while the opposition was showing that it had good ideas and was not afraid of making its economic vision known.

He explained that the PN is proposing a series of measures to incentivise investment by international companies in the creative industry, by building on the measures introduced by previous PN governments. The measures, he added, should also include further investment in the training and education of young people,

“We are calling also on government to provide seed capital for individuals who have ideas which can lead to the creation of new jobs for our young people," he said during a PN event in Fgura. 

While the opposition was prepared to offer its ideas, Busuttil said, government had failed to fulfil its pledge to create jobs for the country’s young people, with youth unemployment increasing by 1,000 in the last few months.

 “If government had created enough jobs the unemployment rate would have dropped. Instead, as the official figures show, the number of unemployed persons has increased and despite government is playing around with numbers, it should firstly be honest and admit that month after month, unemployment has increased since Labour was elected.”

On the other hand, Busuttil said that under PN governments unemployment was under control and “since Labour is incompetent in creating jobs we have stepped forward and today we have issued a plan on how the country can create new jobs in digital gaming.”

Busuttil also called for an independent inquiry over the alleged distribution of medicines to Labour insiders, adding “only through an independent inquiry can political responsibility be shouldered for this scandal.”  

He also accused the Labour administration of being short on ideas in the health sector and slammed government for “dismantling the public private partnerships established by the previous Nationalist government only to reach a similar agreement last week missing on the opportunity to cut down the waiting lists.”

On the reports published yesterday by MaltaToday, which said that the prime minister Joseph Muscat to revoke the sanctioned development that is threatening the unique UNESCO World Heritage status of the Ta’ Hagrat Neolithic temple in Mgarr, Busuttil said “the reports prove that we were right.”

Last week, the opposition deputy leader Mario de Marco filed a parliamentary motion calling on the government to expropriate the plot of land in Mgarr.