The inflation rate for June compared to June last year has shot up to 4.4%, Labour MP Anġlu Farrugia said. It meant that Malta had the second highest rate of inflation in the EU under a methodology that is uniform across EU countries. It was particularly worrying that with the high rate of inflation, Malta was also in recession.

The high rate of inflation could not be isolated from the inferior level of earnings in Malta when compared to other EU countries. While earnings for the man in the street remained the same, the blue-eyed in the government had given themselves a €500 a week rise, Dr Farrugia said.

The government was doing nothing to rein in inflation. And to make it worse, the components that exacerbated inflation were essential objects, consumed daily by the people. The cause was nothing but the burden of the utility bills, and the price of fuel and gas imposed on industry and businesses, which could not but pass on these rises to the consumer. In other words, it was the government that is generating inflation, through its taxes and tariffs, Dr Farrugia said.