Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat yesterday repeatedly accused the government of deceit and of making the people pay for its broken promises and other shortcomings.

He said the government had boasted about the stimulus the budget would give to the Maltese economy, but nothing had been said about the utility bills after two years running in which the government had not addressed the subject adequately.

The government had promised consultation on the new tariffs, which had already been brought into effect from January 1. The tariffs were severe blows to Maltese families and businesses and were the highest in Europe. The government was not even refuting this.

Now there was the concept of a drainage tariff at the rate of €22 on each household. The rates showed there was a discrepancy, even though the government was saying the tariff had been introduced last year.

The people still did not know the future prices of gas in the dead of winter, following two other increases in a short time after privatisation.

The people were being made to pay more by a government that was resorting to polluting sources of energy.

Dr Muscat said Parliament had been repeatedly refused the chance to debate the expansion of Delimara power station, on the pretext that the topic was still being investigated by the auditor general. The opposition was in favour of letting the auditor to work, and would wait as long as it took, but the minister had already been shown signing the expansion contract.

Even before the auditor's conclusions, on Thursday Mepa would hurriedly go ahead with its own discussion. Why had the government not made Mepa wait, as it was making Parliament wait? Was this the credibility the government wanted to give Mepa? This was democratically unacceptable.

This amounted to repeated deceit on the part of the government, saying one thing and doing another.

The opposition was in favour of compensation for the new tariffs, but this would still put families back into the same situation as before. Just hours earlier the Finance Minister had answered a parliamentary question that families that already had an energy voucher would not receive the compensation. Dr Muscat said he had seen vouchers of anything from €1 to €10: did this mean there would still be no compensation from the government? Was this social conscience?

Another PQ, this time from former minister Jesmond Mugliett, had asked why the precipitators at the Marsa power station had not been functioning for a number of months. Minister Gatt's answer was that Mepa had stopped the contractor because he had not exported the fly ash. The operation had restarted after the issue of a new contract.

In November 2009 Mepa's own Environment Protection Department had issued a report that mentioned the electrostatic precipitators and their switching off in January for most of 2009, until November.

While the government said the precipitators had been switched off after Mepa's stop notice, now MEPA itself was saying that Enemalta had switched them off of its own accord. Was the government misleading the House? Both Enemalta and Mepa must put the record straight.

Dr Muscat said it was the people that were paying for this deception. The same held true on public transport: the government had deceived the sector and on top of it all was making the people pay. Just before the election of 2008, Minister Jesmond Mugliett had written to the Association of Public Transport to say that their position was safe until 2018. The government's promises had gone with the wind soon after the election.

The guarantee of employment had now transpired to employment for 10 years with the new contractor, at a minimum wage. The government's efforts to buy back this irresponsible promise would cost €50 million - obviously off the people's backs. This amounted to a new tax that had not been mentioned in the Budget.

No wonder public transport workers were confused at this Hobson's choice. This was a retake of the government's squandering of €50 million to reduce the Drydocks workforce, when the same enterprise now needed workers to make headway.

Dr Muscat said that another case of pseudo democracy was the case of Wenzu Mintoff, who was being made to choose between the editorship of KullĦadd and heading the legal office of Malta Enterprise and Malta Parks.

This case could only be classified as a shame on the preachers of democracy, he concluded.