PN: Government creating jobs for Labour 'clique'

Nationalist Party deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami today said government was unable to cope with the scandals it is creating on a daily basis.

Addressing a press conference outside the Malta Enterprise offices in Guardamangia together with MEP David Casa and candidate Theres Comodini Cachia, the PN deputy leader said the government’s investment arm was a prime example of how government “is only creating jobs for its own clique with the Malta Enterprise chairman, communications officer and chief executive all coming from Labour’s ranks.”

However, Fenech Adami said the list goes beyond former Labour president Mario Vella, former Labour secretary general Jimmy Magro and former Labour Party official Aleks Farrugia.

Supplying a list of former Labour Party and ONE Television employees promoted to government posts following the 2013 general election, Fenech Adami said government was “irresponsibly backtracking on its electoral pledge of meritocracy.”

The list, including former ONE Television employees Manuel Micallef, Charolon Gouder and Miriam Dalli together with former Labour officials James Piscopo, Cyrus Engerer and Jason Micallef, is made up of persons who were employed by government since March 2013, Fenech Adami noted.

“If you had to add up how much these engagements will cost the tax payer over five years, a conservative estimate hovers around the €3 million mark. Instead of creating jobs for the people, this government creates jobs for its own,” he said.

Fenech Adami added that the opposition is increasingly concerned with the increase in unemployment, which is edging towards the 8,000 figure.

“It is no longer a one off increase, but it has become a trend,” he said on the steady increase in unemployment.

Too add injury to insult, Fenech Adami said, the civil service has employed over 1,400 persons since the 2013 election,  noting a sharp increase over previous years.