The Prime Minister’s biggest disappointment in past two-and-half years was the Labour Party’s continuous effort to hide the truth about the international economic crises.

Speaking in Fgura this morning, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said that big countries were going through a difficult time and to improve their situation they were having to take tough austerity measures.

Thanks to the intervention taken by the government, Malta did not have to do this but there were companies and sectors which were still in difficulty and required assistance.

This required the government to take all the tough decisions necessary for the country to be able to overcome challenges.

Now that the budget was coming soon, Dr Gonzi said, the government had to sit with constituted bodies and list the priorities for the country to remain a winner.

The Prime Minister spoke in detail about a whistleblower bill, launched last week.

This, he said, would give people who speak out on anything wrong that was going on and in which they were not involved would be given full protection by the law. oH

He hoped for the cooperation for all for the law to be as strong as possible and said he was disappointed by the opposition’s reaction but hoped for a constructive debate in Parliament.

Dr Gonzi noted that it was not credible to make accusations and not ask the competent authorities, including the police, the Attorney General and the Social Affairs Committee, which was presided by the opposition itself, to investigate such investigations.

Once investigations were carried out, he said, the results should be accepted by all.