Industrial park hosting Labour partisan event could be abusive, PN says

The Nationalist Party has accused Prime Minister Robert Abela of using the Innovation Hub estate in Xewkija, Gozo, for a partisan event held on Sunday 20 December.

The PN said the European Union co-funded estate for SMEs was used for a partisan event for the Labour Party where Robert Abela used the occasion for “partisan comments that served no end the Gozitan people.”

Gozitan MPs Chris Said, Joe Ellis and Kevin Cutajar said Abela had failed to explain to the Gozitan people how the Xewkija Innovation Hub would be generated the jobs once promised by Labour in 2013.

“The hub was inaugurated with much pomp in 2019 and right up to this day, the building is empty, as admitted by the government itself,” the MPs said.

“It should have been incumbent upon Abela to talk about the government’s strategy and initiatives to attract more direct investment to Gozo, particularly to the Innovation Hub so that it does lie disused. Nothing of this was mentioned, and instead more Gozitans have to find work on the Maltese mainland every day,” Chris Said said.

Said called on the industrial lands regulator Indis Malta to explain how the Innovation Hub was used for a partisan event.

“At the very least they must explain their position; and whether the Labour Party paid for this event to be held there, especially considering the high rent at the Innovcation Hub. Did they charge Labour the same rate?”