Charges on health services: No clear government denial - Muscat

Labour leader Joseph Muscat said today that he had not seen any categoric government denial of a statement he made yesterday that the government was planning to introduce charges on some areas of government health services. Nor had the government denied that this was discussed in Cabinet, Dr Muscat told a press conference this morning.

Replying to a question on whether he was satisfied with all of Labour’s EP candidates, especially in view of a story carried in The Sunday Times yesterday on Sharon Ellul Bonici and the eurosceptic movement, Dr Muscat said the PL accepted within it all those who followed the principles of democratic socialism. The discussion over whether or not Malta should join the EU was now closed, and many of those who had been against EU membership now felt that the Labour Party was the best party to represent Malta in the European Parliament and, eventually as a government.

In his press conference Dr Muscat focussed on the jobs sector, saying that according to the Labour Force Survey , the number of gainfully occupied dropped by 1,600 in the fourth quarter of last year, compared to the third quarter. This, he said, had nothing to do with seasonality, because in the previous year, jobs increased by 400 during the same period.

Dr Muscat said that despite the government’s job creation promises, it was unemployment which was increasing, with the jobless rising to almost 11,000 in the fourth quarter, up 700 on the third quarter.

Most of the job losses, he said, were in SMEs, which were increasingly burdened by the fact that Malta was the only eurozone country where inflation had gone up. And the government was blaming businesses rather than addressing the underlying causes, such as the high utility rates.

Furthermore, Dr Muscat said, LPG gas prices were expected to increase after June 6, and the government had not given any guarantee that water and electricity prices would not do likewise.