Government's second year characterised by incompetence - PL

Lawrence Gonzi’s sixth year and his second since winning an election thanks to many promises were characterised by economic uncertainty, incompetence and political instability which harmed families and businesses, the Labour Party said.

It said in a statement that, in two years, the Prime Minister managed to breach his main promises of a surplus by 2010, employment, social subsidies, free health care and lower taxes.

The country had instead been faced with a record deficit of €410 million, unemployment to the tune of 7,758 people, the highest water and electricity rates in Europe, a proposal for health care to become against payment and an increase in taxation.

Dockyard workers had also been promised peace of mind but the enterprise was closed down after the election. Bus drivers were promised employment but instead the government forked out €58 million from the people’s taxes to buy them out.

The Prime Minister was also incompetent in the health sector which was drowning in problems and which was not giving people the service they deserved.

There were more than 20,000 people on waiting lists for an operation and the hospital was again filling up with social cases. The country had recently returned to a situation of patients in corridors. This, the PL said, was when the government had moved a proposal to introduce payment on health.

These problems in the government’s administration continued to deteriorate because Dr Gonzi was more set on seeing to his party’s internal problems rather then to the situation of families and Maltese and Gozitan businesses.

The government lost a parliamentary vote and postponed another on St John’s CoCathedral. It also postponed a debate on the extension of the power station.

All this instability was due to the weak administration of Lawrence Gonzi which had continued to harm the country.

In spite of all these problems, Dr Gonzi continued to ignore the people’s real priorities.

While families, young people, students, the middle-class, the elderly and businessmen were feeling the burden of bills, the Prime Minister was spending more than €100 million on the building of a new Parliament and to buy the promise he had made bus owners.

The people were feeling that the government was not on their side and that its priorities were all wrong.