Busuttil: Prime Minister ‘detached’ from reality

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is detached from reality and the people’s needs, PN leader Simon Busuttil said, adding that Labour administration only cared for its inner circles who were well off thanks to government's greed.

Addressing a party activity in Xaghra, Gozo, Busuttil said upon being elected as party leader just over a year ago, he had expressed his determination “to see the PN become once again the people’s party.”

Being close to the people had helped him understand the challenges and pains persons faced in their daily lives, Busuttil said, adding that over the past year he met persons who suffered vindictive transfers, unemployment, a slowdown in retail sales and

“These are the realities we are coming across on a daily basis and the Labour government is doing nothing at all about it.”

He added that “instead of addressing these bread and butter issues, the prime minister wasted his time claiming he’s the underdog, hugging a criminal and baptising him as a soldier of steel and trying to turn these elections into a personal contest.”

The PN leader stressed that the Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was living in a bubble because he was detached from the daily realities and the people’s sentiments, while his inner circles have it good.

In a direct appeal to the electorate, Busuttil said “on Saturday it’s your turn to talk and send a clear message that it’s wrong to have a government which only cares about the persons in its inner circles.”

Saturday’s elections, Busuttil added were a golden opportunity to elect candidates who had the country’s wellbeing at heart and who, unlike Labour, were capable of representing the people and achieving the best possible deals for Gozo and the rest of the country.

Busuttil went on to list the projects completed by the previous PN governments in Gozo including upgrades at the Gozo hospital, the restoration of the capital’s old walls, the opening of a new ITS campus, new roads and new schools. .

PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said Labour had betrayed its pre-electoral pledges of meritocracy and “is a government that only cares for a small number of people in its inner circles.”

He said that while energy minister Konrad Mizzi’s wife was awarded a job a €13,000-a-month job, students were given a 4c increase in their stipend, adding that this Saturday’s European election presented the electorate with an opportunity to reject the Labour administration’s “hypocrisy.”