Government 'forgot about Gozo' PN MPs say

The government’s budget for 2021 “forgot” all about Gozo, PN spokesperson for Gozo Affairs and Constitutional Reform, Chris Said has said.

The budget offered no solutions for the problems facing Malta’s sister island, he said, in particular when it came to keeping electoral pledges of job creation there.

Said also decried what he described as “a lack of serious planning” in the construction industry on the once-picturesque island, adding that the industry was killing the goose which laid the golden eggs. The building boom had changed the fabric of society there and had led to an increase in crime, he added.

The difference in average yearly salary between workers in Malta and Gozo is €3000, Said claimed, emphasising that this meant that the Gozitan worker effectively gives 2 months of free work every year.

The privatisation of the only hospital on Gozo showed that the Government cared naught for the Gozitan population’s wellbeing, Said argued. He pointed to the fiasco in the treatment of the island’s elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic and what he described as the incompetence of the government in its negotiations with Vitals Global Healthcare who had committed to building a hospital two and a half years ago, yet had nothing to show for it despite an €80 million annual outlay.
“This is a budget that entirely ignored the real problems of Gozo and its people,” he said.

Newly elected PN MP, lawyer Joe Ellis made his maiden appearance, arguing that where there is no quality employment, society suffers and progress is reversed. “This is unfortunately the tendency in Gozo with people abandoning it,” Ellis said, adding that there was no investment to substitute the now-closed factories which would employ hundreds of workers in the past.

Gozo’s innovation hub had to be populated by businesses, he said. “Unfortunately Labour’s answer to the employment problem is to employ a lot of people as watchmen and security guards who work a few hours and go home.”

Gozitan students also needed to be able to satisfy their work aspirations without going abroad. He encouraged Malta Enterprise to set up a specific unit for Gozo to attract investment to the island. “The PN is committed to do everything required to have Gozo attracting quality employment.”

MP Kevin Cutajar addressed the theme of accessibility on transport between the two islands. “Unlike the government, we want to implement discourse on the subject and not just say it.”

Dismissing Labour’s promises about Gozo as being “only talk,” Cutajar pointed out that no fast ferry service had been set up since the 2013 electoral promise, adding that there was a “smell of corruption” in its regard. Neither had projects of the cruise liner port or the Marsalforn breakwater materialised.

Cutajar called for a masterplan for Gozo in order to preserve the beauty of the island and protect it from unbridled construction.