The Nationalist Party said in statement this evening that the Finance Minister had confirmed that a Labour Government would be imposing €50 million in new taxes in the 2014 Budget.

This, it said, was besides the shrinking of this year’s Budget by €21 million, a decision that affected 113 programmes and initiatives and 57 Government entities.

With its decision, the Labour Government would be increasing the tax burden which the previous Government had reduced year after year.

It would be doing this so as to implement haphazard promises it made during the electoral campaign as well as to make up for the obscene wages it was giving its friends in the first months of the legislature.

These included the contract given to Minister Konrad Mizzi’s wife for €13,000 a month, the double pay to MP Silvio Schembri amounting to €65,000 a year, and the expenditure on one of the biggest cabinets there ever was in Malta and which would be costing more than €100 million in five years.

This was being done in spite of statements made by Joseph Muscat during the electoral campaign that no new taxes would be introduced.

The Nationalist Party appealed to the Prime Minister to reconsider his decision especially at a time when economic growth was slow and which was translating in an increase in unemployment month after month.

Since the beginning, the Nationalist Party promised its support for the Prime Minister to reach the established financial aims and for the creation of jobs.

However, it could never agree to an increase in taxes simply to make good for the uncontrolled increase in Government expenditure on wages to close friends.

It was not acceptable for Maltese families and businesses to have to pay for such mistakes, the PN said.