The government had "failed miserably" on its promise to tackle poverty, the Nationalist Party said today.
Addressing a press conference at the Cospicua waterfront, shadow social policy minister Paula Mifsud Bonnici said a report published by the European Commission last week showed a drastic increase in poverty and those at risk of poverty.
The report, which covers 2013 and 2014, rapped Malta for registering an increase in poverty, a problem Dr Mifsud Bonnic said, which was confirmed by the National Statistics Office in separate figures.
The Opposition spokesman on Disability and Aging, Robert Cutajar, said the Labour Party had promised to reduce the figure of 88,000 people in or at risk of poverty in its electoral manifesto back in 2013. Yet, according to the commission report, this had now increased to 100,000.
"Was the Labour Party being honest or deceptive when it promised to tackle this problem?" he asked.
Stephen Spiteri, the Opposition's spokesman on poverty and social housing said the government was not distributing welfare evenly.
He asked how the government was trumpeting the island's strong economy, while problems like poverty were on the rise.
The average salary, he said, had not increased while the cost of living was constantly rising.
"Not seeing beggars on the street does not mean we do not have a problem," he said.