A legal notice published in the Government Gazette on December 5 has confirmed the introduction of the sewerage tax, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said this evening.

He said when speaking in Tarxien that the new tax was being introduced quietly behind the trade union's backs - a year after Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt denied that such a tax was planned.

Dr Muscat said no playing about with words would change anything. Dr Gatt had said this was not a tax but a tariff, and now the legal notice spoke of a 'drainage contribution', but the bottom line was that it would come from the people's pockets.

The Labour leader also hit out at the government over the utility tariffs, saying that the government had published the legal notice with the new rates even when the unions were still discussing them. This was not real consultation.