Updated at 10.30am with PL's reply
The Nationalist Party this morning condemned the Prime Minister’s visit to Dubai saying he was trying to give the impression of “business as usual” at a moment of national tragedy.
In a statement, the party said that the world's attention was currently on Malta to see how the country was facing the tragedy as well as the institutional crisis it was facing.
While the Opposition was continuing to insist that responsibility should be shouldered for confidence in the country’s institutions to be regained, the Prime Minister was trying to throw everything under the carpet and in the most insolent manner he was giving priority to selling the country's citizenship.
The PN said that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri was under a criminal investigation by the Courts after former Opposition leader Simon Busuttil submitted evidence of corruption from the sale of passports in court.
In such circumstances, a serious prime minister sould have been responsible and while, at the very least, accept the call for a parliamentary debate on civil society’s requests, he would have certainly not gone to Dubai to sell citizenship.
In a reply, the Labour Party said the people expected the Prime Minister to ensure that everthing was done to ensure justice. This was being done and the government's efforts had also been noted by European institutions.
At the same time, the people also expected the Prim Minister to ensure that this barbaric act did not bring everything to a halt.
They expected the Prime Minister to continue to go abroad to attract investment and bring employment to the country.
What the Maltese did not expect was for its leaders to go to other European countries and denegrate Malta, the PL said.
It added that they also did not expect to be insulted by an Opposition which wanted to use Ms Caruana Galizia’s assassination for partisan aims as it was doing through its continuous statements.