Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi yesterday promised: “There will be no charges on health care or medicines as long as I am in office.”

Dr Gonzi made the hard hitting statement in reply to claims by the Malta Labour Party that the government planned to introduce charges on health care back in 2004. Dr Gonzi was speaking during a live television programme in Zurrieq hosted by Claudette Pace on Net Television.

Although the theme was about labour and employment, Dr Gonzi’s most important messages of the evening were about health care, the PN’s history in Zurrieq and that while the PN was focusing on concrete proposals, the Labour Party was resorting to its “usual desperate measures of mudslinging”.

Dr Gonzi said there was only a week to go before the final ballot, yet all the MLP could muster was its usual tactics of mudslinging and dirty politics. He also thanked the Zrieraq (people from Zurrieq) for the very warm welcome they gave him. “I have not yet been greeted by fireworks, but you did today,” said a smiling Dr Gonzi. He also said that when practising as a lawyer, he started family life in Safi.

“My first office was in Zurrieq and I have to say, you have some really sweet families and some real characters in this village. I thank you all for taking this pretty village forward,” he said.

The Prime Minister said it was in the nature of the job for politicians to criticise each other. “But I do not like it when parties insult people. It’s wrong and I do not like it,” he said firmly. Dr Gonzi said the MLP’s strategy of “Gonzi lies” is an act of desperation.

“If I had promised no fees on medicine, then turned around and did it, I could understand. But I didn’t,” he said, adding that it was Alfred Sant’s government that had introduced a Lm0.50 charge on every prescription issued.

“There will be no charges on medicine or health care as long as I am Prime Minister,” said Dr Gonzi.

He spoke about Labour’s claims and said that in 2004, when the state of finances and the need to rectify them was critical, he was given various ideas and proposals that would help shore up the leaking ship. “Some told me to remove stipends, others told me to tax medicines, there were many proposals,” he said.

He continued: “The report in question was discussed at Cabinet Committee level, it never even made it to Cabinet. But it seems that despite his 22-month stint, Alfred Sant did not really know how Cabinet worked.”

Dr Gonzi said that rather than charge for health care or remove stipends, the government decided to boost the latter and build a state-of-the-art hospital in relation to the former.

He referred back to Dr Sant’s introduction of a Lm0.50 charge on prescriptions and said: “There was a former Labour leader who was on Dr Sant’s team, and that was Dom Mintoff. He said that Dr Sant had lost his social awareness direction finder. And I will echo him. Dr Sant, you lost your social awareness direction finder... and you still haven’t found it!”