Busuttil highlights government’s shortcomings in Gozo

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil remarked that the only thing that the Labour government did for Gozo was to order a Gozo Channel ferry to return back.

Speaking during a party event held yesterday evening in Għajnsielem Gozo, Busuttil referred to a number of transfers that Gozitans received to start working in Malta, saying these were politically motivated. He encouraged those present to keep this intimidation in mind when voting for their EP representatives.

“Despite promising employment in Gozo for the Gozitans, the only initiative by Muscat was to introduce a scheme where those interested were employed to carry out cleansing work,” Simon Busuttil said.

The Nationalist Party also rebuffed Joseph Muscat’s accusations that the previous administration failed to convince the European Commission on more EU funds to Gozo.

Replying to accusations made by Muscat on the party’s radio station, the Opposition said the document to which Muscat referred to was a government request for more funding should Malta’s request for objective one status be denied.

“But eventually Malta succeeded to negotiate a record funding of €1.1 million, and the same document was superseded since the government received more funds than what was being projected,” the opposition remarked.

Muscat had said that the previous administration failed to convince the European Commission to consider Gozo as a region, which would have brought more EU funds to be spent on the sister island. The Prime Minister said that the commission’s reply – dating back to October 2012 – was kept in the dark on purpose in order not to have a negative effect on the PN’s chances in the general election which was only months away.

The PN described this as ‘political dishonesty’ and said that this was nothing but a deviation to alienate the electorate from the poor results the government obtained for Gozo during its first year, in particular on job creation.