The Opposition’s pledge to purchase electricity from the cheapest source would lead to increased pollution and steeper utility bills, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat warned yesterday.
Replying to PN leader Simon Busuttil’s post-Budget speech on Monday, Dr Muscat said he hoped the pledge was simply a “knee-jerk reaction”. Dr Busuttil had said a future PN administration would not limit itself to the 18-year deal the government had entered into with energy provider Electrogas.
Shaking his head, Dr Muscat said both main political parties had been guilty of threatening to dishonour commitments in the past, but he thought this had ended with the last general election.
“I believed we had reached a certain political maturity in this country; that we had moved beyond dishonouring agreements. Isn’t that what voters voted for?” he asked. His two-hour speech was characterised by a dismissive tone towards the Opposition leader.
Missing no opportunity to question Dr Busuttil’s “ability to grasp basic economic and governance concepts”, Dr Muscat even likened Dr Busuttil to a school boy who should “take notes”.
“Learn to read and count first,” Dr Muscat said, prompting a wave of applause from the government benches. Dr Muscat described the Opposition leader as “bitter”, saying the electorate had moved past the “politics of jealousy” which had persisted for so many years.
‘What you see is what you get, love us or hate us’
“We are willing to work with everyone, and what you see is what you get, love us or hate us,” he said.
The evening saw a series of outbursts from government MPs too, many of whom took to heckling Dr Busuttil with shouts of “Shame” and “Go hide yourself.”
“Let’s teach him another sum... Divide your pages into columns with a ruler first,” Dr Muscat said, while ‘explaining’ to Dr Busuttil that youth unemployment had been halved.
Moving to more serious issues, Dr Muscat said the Nationalist government had assisted a company to the tune of €10 million in direct and indirect subsidies despite information suggesting it had criminal links.
Dr Muscat said that a due diligence exercise carried out back in 2011 into TRC Ltd, a company which used to employ 100 people, had raised “more questions than it had answered”.
A separate inquiry, he said, had found the promoters had something to hide and a history of unsuccessful business ventures.
It also noted that their wealth “must have stemmed from criminal activity”.
Again, backed by several jeers from the government benches, Dr Muscat said the government was uncovering more scandals as time went by.
The rest of the evening saw the Prime Minister parading the government’s budgetary measures. The government, he said, was pro-business, tough on abusers, but fair with honest tax payers. It did not follow the “electoral cycle”, which Dr Muscat said normally saw taxes increased year on year except before an election.
“After the budget people normally talk about what the government took in taxes. But now they are talking about what the government is giving them,” he said.
In a press conference after the speech, Dr Busuttil said the Prime Minister had shown a lot of bluff but no substance on the issues that affected people’s lives.
“In a two-hour speech lacking in humility, there was a lot of hard- headedness. We still do not know what the government’s economic vision is,” Dr Busuttil said.
Dr Muscat’s speech, he said, was a reaction to his own, which showed the validity of the Opposition. Dr Busuttil did not take any questions.