Sant pledges scrutiny of food, medicine prices

A new Labour government would oblige competition regulators to submit reports on price fluctuations in food and medicine to the government and the opposition every six months, Labour leader Alfred Sant said yesterday.

In these reports, they would have to declare whether these changes were made in a transparent manner and with respect to competition rules, Dr Sant said at the end of a Labour demonstration calling for job creation held under rain in Hamrun yesterday.

Dr Sant said that a new Labour government would also, in between six months and a year after its election, introduce a system to collect waste separated at source from homes in agreement with local councils. This would be accompanied by an educational campaign for the reduction and separation of waste.

A new Labour government would also subsidise the Gozo helicopter service within three months of taking office, to make this service more attractive for tourists who wanted to spend a few days on the sister island.

These proposals, Dr Sant said, could be implemented immediately by the Nationalist administration and if Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi wanted to do so, he would get Labour's support.

The Labour leader said the people were fed up of empty promises, incompetence and the ever-growing tax burdens. They no longer believed the country's situation was improving. They felt that the opposite was true, with cash flow drying up and more factories and hotels closing down.

There was stagnation all around and while the Prime Minister defended colleagues who blatantly breached ministers' code of ethics, the people wanted to be told the truth.

He said Labour believed that jobs and progress were built on private initiative. The private sector, therefore, needed to be encouraged to grow and could not be strangled by taxes and bureaucracy.

Labour also believed in social justice, in a society where everyone counted and had something to contribute.

The government, he said, had failed in major infrastructural projects such as the new hospital, the Cirkewwa and Mgarr harbours, the White Rocks complex, the communal centre in Gozo, the Connections project in Valletta, the redevelopment of the Ta' Qali crafts village, the Mdina paving, Dock One, the Barrakka lift, the St George's Square in Valletta, the Gozo abattoir, the Park and Ride Scheme and waste collection.

It squandered funds on Dar Malta, failed in its target to raise the number of tourists by 50,000 last year and to keep its promise not to reduce students' stipends.

Neither had the government rebuilt the old opera house or built a hotel at Cottonera.

He said the Labour Party was preparing detailed plans for job-creating sectors such as tourism and the environment in line with decisions taken by the party general conference.

Within a few months it would also have plans for manufacturing industry, health, education and Gozo.

Under a Labour government, projects submitted to the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) would be decided within six months.

The MLP was also promising to solve the problem of the incinerator at St Luke's Hospital within six months of coming to office and to launch, together with councils and environmental organisations, a project to safeguard the country's valleys especially in Gozo and in the south.

It was also promising to set up a sanctuary for domestic animals.

In the tourism sector, it was promising that in the first three months it would review the tax burdens on the sector and come up with proposals to reduce them within six months.

It would ensure a balance between three- and five-star facilities in its promotion of the sector and it would launch projects in Grand Harbour, in the Maghtab area and in Gozo with land reclamation being part of these projects.

Present for yesterday's demonstration was Labour MEP John Attard Montalto, who has lately been criticised by senior members of the party, including Dr Sant.

When addressing the party's general conference a few days ago, Dr Sant thanked MEPs Joseph Muscat and Louis Grech for their work in the European Parliament but failed to mention Dr Attard Montalto.