Muscat condemns high cost of living

Labour leader Joseph Muscat said today that the government should ensure that taxation on basic necessities wasn't increased and that the board which supervised the cost of medicines was reconvened.

Dr Muscat told a gathering in Fgura that the cost of living was the highest it had ever been in the past decade, higher even than the eurozone average.

However, Dr Muscat insisted, Labour was not criticising the fact that Malta had joined the eurozone but the government for not taking the required measures to stop the cost of living from escalating.

Had Labour been in government, Dr Muscat continued, it would have done as the British government had done and not increase fuel taxes. It would also have ensured that taxation on necessities was not increased.

Moreover, Labour would have ensured that the board which supervised the prices of medicines, and which had not met for a year, would again start meeting on a regular basis.

“Once again, we have to start believing in ourselves,” Dr Muscat said.

The Labour leader also mentioned the shipyards, insisting that to benefit from privatisation, the government should stop criticising the enterprise and start praising it.

"The shipyards do, after all, possess some of the best technological elements the island has ever produced," said Dr Muscat.

On the public transport reform, Dr Muscat said that the government had been promising a reform since 1988 when a local newspaper published a headline reading that the government was determined to reform public transport for the public's benefit.

In August, the same newspaper reported success in the transport sector.

Now that the election has passed, the government stated that public transport was a failure, argued Dr Muscat.

Labour, Dr Muscat continued, wanted real liberalisation, which did not create new monopolies but better services and competition for the benefit of consumers.

Dr Muscat also welcomed the Ombudsman’s opinion that people who were found to have suffered injustices and had not been compensated should be given a remedy as soon as possible.