Muscat says PM must make U-turn on maternity leave on Budget Day

Labour leader Joseph Muscat has insisted that utility rates remain the biggest yoke on the nation's economic growth, and called on the prime minister to renounce the Cabinet's €500 weekly salary increase.

"Cabinets in other countries took a decision to freeze ministers' salaries. Gonzi on the other hand is the highest-ever paid prime minister of Malta... I think that is where the waste lies," Muscat said in reply to a question over the prime minister's energy-saving measure at Castille to install eco-friendly light bulbs.

On the eve of Budget Day, Muscat said he expected government to reverse its stand on extending maternity leave. "We would support the government on this, even though it would have wasted two years."

He also said finance minister Tonio Fenech would be looking at the budget as just another accounting exercise. "Instead we want a budget that helps families, pensioners, students and to see employment creation being incentivised and investment in a stronger framework for pensioners."

Muscat also said he wanted Fenech to give people a real picture of the economy, referring to some €1 billion in government-guaranteed debt held in parastatal companies.

"I know that we can handle the deficit, but you cannot run away from the national debt. Not even when you create companies for projects like the City Gate construction just to 'hide' this debt."

But Muscat berated Gonzi for lacking the 'moral authority' to take certain decisions, claiming he lacked leadership. "This government has a defective majority and a crisis of stability... it is a problem that has haunted Gonzi's government for some time now. The latest vote of confidence was the most recent of these problems," he said with reference to backbencher Franco Debono's abstention on an Opposition motion of no confidence against transport minister Austin Gatt.

Muscat said that in an ensuring vote of confidence called by Gonzi, the prime minister never once addressed the problem he faced inside his backbench. "Instead his speech read like a resume of world events we already hear about in the news."

The Opposition leader also raised doubts over the efficacy of the prime minister's own task force to handle the shortcomings of the flegding public transport service. "I can't see the deployment of police officers and army soldiers to manage the traffic as a solution. I see it as management by crisis - it's a short-term solution to have them give buses priority in traffic lanes, but not a real solution. How sustainable can it be... do we really need the army to manage traffic? What will happen in a month's time?

Muscat also reserved special criticism over a lack of delivered targets on Smart City on job creation and a €13 million bill footed by the state for the provision of infrastructural services for the ICT village. "It is sheer incompetence and once again it shows a lack of planning."