People’s income is not going up at the same rate as under the previous government, with the average wage rising by just €200 a year, according to Opposition leader Simon Busuttil.

Under the previous administration, wages had increased by €500 a year, he pointed out yesterday on radio, questioning whether wealth was being distributed fairly.

“The Opposition expects a Budget which distributes wealth fairly and not one which enables a few insiders to wallow in glut. The economy has continued to grow but what will be remembered most is the scandalous gorging which Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is shutting his eyes to.”

Some 100,000 people were living in poverty, he said, while, during the course of one year, the number of elderly people living at or below the poverty line had increased by 2,500.

Elderly people were the most vulnerable as they depended on their pension and could not decide to switch jobs if they felt their income was not sufficient, Dr Busuttil said.

Despite the price of oil having plummeted during the past year, fuel prices did not reflect this trend.

The Maltese were paying prices which were more expensive than the EU average – even higher than countries such as Austria, who had higher salaries.

The scandalous gorging which Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is shutting his eyes to

Apart from the expenses, the daily traffic congestion meant that a lot of fuel was being consumed.

Half this legislature had swept by and yet the government had not yet presented a concrete traffic management plan, he said. “The traffic problem didn’t crop up under the Labour government of course. But Labour was elected on its pledge of having a solution and a roadmap. Instead, the situation has actually worsened.”

He called for a traffic management plan which would encapsulate a proper understanding of traffic flows, bottlenecks and problematic areas.

He lambasted Transport Minister Joe Mizzi as “incompetent” and “irrelevant”.

“We recently had a debate in Parliament without him. Despite him being abroad, the Prime Minister decided to have the debate anyway – meaning that he thinks that his Transport Minister is irrelevant.”

Touching on the citizenship scheme, he referred to the fact that despite the government changing the law to enable the names of the people awarded a passport under the Individual Investor Programme to be published, they were still not being identified.

The names were being published along with other foreigners who had acquired citizenship through other means, such as by marrying a Maltese national or after having lived here for a long period of time.

The Prime Minister refused to have the names published in a separate list, he said.