The 33 migrants who landed in Gozo last week had been sent back after they almost reached Italy, Labour Leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.
He challenged the Prime Minister to confirm this, saying that if Lawrence Gonzi wanted to be honest he would say that the boat had been spotted by the Armed Forces of Malta and that someone directed it to turn back and head for Gozo as it neared Italy. The boat, Dr Muscat added, probably did not have enough fuel to make it back to Gozo but he did not say who had directed the boat back to Marsalforn.
The immigrants landed on a rocky beach in Qbajjar, near Marsalforn, to the north of the island. Usually, the landings take place on the southern parts of the Maltese islands facing the North African coast from where immigrants leave.
Dr Muscat said the Prime Minister was covering the matter up because he had lost control of the situation, a phrase he returned to often in his speech yesterday when assessing Dr Gonzi's performance in different areas.
"Maybe he can call (Silvio) Berlusconi again on this one," he said referring to the recent telephone conversation Dr Gonzi had with his Italian counterpart on a dispute over who should take migrants rescued close to Lampedusa.
Dr Muscat was speaking on the European Parliament campaign trail in Gozo, a political hotspot in every election. In fact, much of his criticism was directed at the government's performance with respect to the sister island.
Dr Muscat's main emphasis was on the rising cost of living, which, he insisted, the government had lost control over. He referred to a recent speech by the Central Bank Governor who said that inflation - among the highest among eurozone countries - was the result of "market imperfections".
"This means there is something wrong with the market," Dr Muscat insisted, berating the fact that a 50-point electoral manifesto launched by Dr Gonzi on Saturday does not include one measure dealing with inflation.
The government had no solutions to the problem, he said, adding that the Prime Minister would sit pretty throughout this crisis, hoping that things would settle down before the next election. "Well, I don't care what happens till the next election, I care about the bills you are receiving now and how they are impacting your lives," Dr Muscat said, insisting on the need for a price watch agency to root out abuse.
He returned to the fraud investigations at the VAT department, a subject he has been drumming upon for the past weeks. The fraud, said to involve millions of euros, allegedly involves several VAT department officials rigging the system in such a way that businessmen with pending tax bills ended up being owed money by the government.
Investigations are still ongoing but, irrespective of the status of the police probe, Dr Muscat said a political judgment could be made and again demanded to know who would carry the political responsibility for the fiasco.