Campaigns aimed to instil fear in workers who may be considering giving their vote to Labour are on the increase, PL leader Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Speaking during a dialogue meeting at Ghaxaq, Dr Muscat said that such campaigns were currently underway at the National Sports Council and at the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage.

Workers at these institutions, Dr Muscat said, should be assured that they did not have anything to worry about.

Dr Muscat said that the government would continue to do the impossible to keep clinging to power but Labour would continue work with conviction to the end.

The Labour leader criticised a recent Enemalta statement justifying the tariffs in Malta by comparing them to those in other European countries and saying they were among the lowest.

Enemalta's explanation, the Labour leader said, did not make sense and whoever wrote it was either incompetent or thought he could fool the people.

For while it was true that the price of diesel in Malta was on the low side when compared to other countries in Europe, this was because Malta's taxes on these commodities were lower.

So to compare like with like, Enemalta should have removed the tax charged from the figures it presented. Had it done so, one would have been able to see that Malta's rates were among the highest.

The Labour leader said he expected the Malta Resources Authority to investigate and explain why it had not said anything about such a misleading statement from Enemalta.

A regulator, he said, was not a government department and had to be independent of the government.

Dr Muscat spoke about the economic and financial administration of the country saying this was amateurish and not deserving of a small company let alone a country.

The deficit, which had to go down by €50 million by the end of the year, had already increased by €83 million and to meet targets, the government will have to cut down on necessary infrastructural works.

Debt also had to increase by €100 million by the end of the year but it had already increased by €141 million in six months, not including the recent stocks.

This led the country to spend €92 million in interest in the past months, 30 per cent more than had been spent on education.

European statistics also showed that retail in Malta dropped by seven per cent. Faced with this, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister said figures did not reflect reality.

Dr Muscat spoke about problems which were the result of lack of planning including at the new power station, on which more money would have to be spent when it was eventually converted to gas, with the bus reform, where a private company which won a competitive contract was now being subsidised, and at Mater Dei, where there was no parking plan yet in spite of problems being already in existence and expected to increase with the building of an Oncology Hospital.

Other problems, such as Gozo General Hospital being rat infested, as had been claimed by the nurses' union, were due to lack of management.

Dr Muscat again referred to Ambassador Richard Cachia Caruana's pay packet saying that besides his annual pay of €150,000, he also had another €170,000 for expenses.

He noted that, at one point in 2009, Mr Cachia Caruana was given a raise of €500 a week.

"Does this remind you of anything or anyone," Dr Muscat asked.

At the beginning of his address, Dr Muscat congratulated Libyans for their participation in their first free elections.

The Maltese, he said, would continue to support the Libyans' free choice.