There would be more pollution and electricity would cost more if the government listened to the Opposition and did not build the new power station, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Speaking at the Fgura party club, Dr Muscat said that unless a new power station was built, the old Delimara power station, which was being paid for now as the previous government did not pay a cent on it, could not be dismantled.

This meant that the country would have to keep operating with heavy fuel oil which meant more pollution. Moreover, the Marsa chimney would have to be re-erected to ensure spare capacity.

Dr Muscat said that bills would also have to be higher as Malta would continue to depend on more costly oil.

The Opposition leader, Dr Muscat said, wanted Malta to keep depending on oil technology.

Earlier, the Prime Minister said that many countries had reduced pensions and wages and stopped investment in health, education and infrastructure to reduce the deficit.

On the other hand Malta reduced the deficit by expanding the economy, reducing costs and increasing incentives.

The previous government, Dr Muscat said, had been trying to do this but was putting the costs on the middle class. This government expanded the economy and reduced debt. Malta was in fact the third country to mostly reduce debt in Europe.

While doing all this, the government increased expenditure in education by 38 per cent, in health and the elderly by 40 per cent, excluding private sector investment, and on culture by 30 per cent. He pointed out that there were 10,000 people in Malta who received an income from culture sector.

He again went over the case of TRC Family Entertainment, a company which had to invest to create video games and which had been assisted to the tune of $10 million.

A due diligence exercise, he said, had warned the government that the investors had something to hide as all their previous companies had failed and that their money came from criminal activity.

The political responsibility for it had to be shouldered, Dr Muscat said.

Former Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said in Parliament on Friday defended the previous government’s assistance to TRC.

He said the money invested had been bound to jobs and went for the wages of people who had been employed by the company.

Dr Muscat said that 17new jobs a day were being created and the number of unemployed, which under the previous government had increased by 1,000 had now been reduced by 2,250.

Dr Muscat said that eight out of 10 jobs created in Malta in the past two and a half years were created by the private sector.

“Continue to invest in this country and you will find our support,” he told investors.

He added that 72 per cent of jobs created by the government were in the education and health sectors.

He stressed his intention to fight social security abuse and said that there were many people in the country who would support the government for taking action against abusers.