The Nationalist Party called on the Prime Minister to carefully evaluate the decision to impose €50 million in taxes on families and businesses.

The party’s spokesman on finance, Tonio Fenech, said the Government had already slashed €21 million from last year’s Budget, a decision impacting 113 programmes and initiatives and 57 government entities.

Higher taxes, he said, were needed to implement Labour’s pre-election promises, to cover the “obscene wages” it gave to “friends” and to sustain one of Malta’s largest-ever Cabinets, which would cost the public more than €100 million in five years.