Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s second speech before Parliament on Budget 2008 last night was devoid of substance and failed to address the primary problems the country was facing, Malta Labour Party leader Alfred Sant said at a press conference held in the wake of the speech.

Moreover, the speech confirmed what the Malta Labour Party (MLP) has been saying all along – that the budget measures for the coming year announced last week were a matter of “too little, too late”.

Speaking just after Dr Gonzi’s address, Dr Sant – flanked by opposition deputy leader Charles Mangion and MLP parliamentary whip Joe Mizzi – said Dr Gonzi had failed to address issues such as the rising cost of living, the need to create productive employment, improve the quality of Malta’s educational structures and to step up the fight against corruption.

It was proposals addressing issues such as these, Dr Sant said, that the Maltese and Gozitan people were waiting for and which the government had failed to deliver.

Dr Sant said it was shocking how the prime minister persisted in pushing forward with the breast screening programme announced in Budget 2008. He continued to do so, Dr Sant said, despite the fact that the medical sector’s main players had not been informed of the programme and that the country did not even have the human resources or equipment to run such a programme.

The country’s administration, he added, was bereft of ideas and has expired. As such, the majority of the Maltese and Gozitan people wanted a change of the sort Labour could provide.