The PN has ended up having to go abroad to defend Malta’s reputation as a country, PN leader Adrian Delia said in his customary Sunday address at a political activity in Mqabba.

Delia said that the PN does not take pleasure in the damage that is being done to the country by the practices of the current government.  He made mention of several international reports, such as the recent decision by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to blacklist Malta over its sale of passports, and another report which quoted Malta as being “a magnet for corruption and money laundering”.  

The Opposition Leader spoke of how he had been at a summit in Brussels with the European People’s Party (EPP) over the past weeks, and commented that every time Malta was mentioned, it was in the negative, and that each time he had to rise to stand up and defend the country.  

Delia said that the reputational damage to the country by the government had to stop, and said that this isn’t a matter of elections, votes or political parties; but a matter of “the future of our country”.

Delia pledges support to Simon Busuttil

The PN leader in his addressed pledged support to fellow PN MP, and former party leader, Simon Busuttil.

Delia said that the party will come together and defend any of its MPs in the face of insults thrown at them by the government.
Busuttil had come under fire by the Prime Minister and a host of other government MPs after asserting in parliament that he still believed that Egrant belonged to the Prime Minister.

He also made reference to the government’s motion in parliament to discuss the starting of an inquiry to see whether everything had truly been done to prevent the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.  Delia said that they had asked for this motion to be discussed with urgency last Thursday – a day in which parliament is not traditionally in session – but the government decided that there was no urgency in the matter. 

‘Investors are creating wealth, while government is creating poverty’

“Investors are creating wealth, while the government is creating poverty,” the PN leader said when commenting on Malta’s economic situation.

Delia said that the government had taken up a “mantra” wherein it considered everything as going well and not experiencing problems, and that even though some sectors were indeed performing well, the country’s wealth was not being split amongst its people.

He said that the government was detached from reality, and that there were 3,200 pending applications for social housing – meaning that there are 3,200 families or individuals who do not have enough to make ends meet or even a roof over their heads.

The government’s reply to this, Delia said, is one of “silence, insensitivity, and a clear message that they do not care about these people”.  He said that the PN did care and that their message was clear; that a nationalist government will not let any Maltese or Gozitan live without a roof over their heads.

“The Prime Minister wants to talk about robot’s rights”, Delia said referring to a recent summit that Joseph Muscat addressed on artificial intelligence; “but we want to talk about people’s rights”, the opposition leader said of the PN.

Local Government Reform White Paper an “insult” – Robert Cutajar

Another speaker at the political activity was PN whip Robert Cutajar, who is also the party’s spokesperson for Local Councils, Communities and EU Funds.  He described the recently published local government reform white paper as an “insult”, and said that the very fact that the government had opened the consultation period on the white paper in the busiest weeks of the year truly shows that it does not care about local councils.

He said that while the government had boasted of giving more power at a local level, they were proposing the removal of administrative committees – a decision which Cutajar described as “obscene” and which he said was in actual fact removing power from the local councils.

He said that the PN had presented 80 proposals on local government, but the final white paper only carried 40 proposals.  Cutajar noted that subjects such as traffic, housing and local security were not included in the white paper, and neither were measures related to local council staff.

MPs Ivan Bartolo and Mario De Marco also addressed the activity, focusing on the rental market and the upcoming national Budget respectively.  Bartolo said that the rental market white paper was written to arrange the macabre situation that the Labour government itself had created, and said that rent should take up a third of a person’s income; while De Marco said that he expected the upcoming Budget to introduce measures to spread wealth more evenly across the whole of society.

Delia doesn't care about how the surplus will help families - PL

Reacting to Delia saying "let the government stay shouting about their surplus", the Labour Party said that this declaration means nothing but the fact that Adrian Delia does not see the importance of the country having more income and expenses. 

The party said that for the past three years the government had raked in a surplus and that therefore the government had been in a position to offer positive budgets that strengthen the middle class and create social justice.

The Nationalist Party, the PL said, was synonymous with deficit, and left the country in an Excessive Deficit Procedure which resulted in the budget for sectors such as health and education to be reduced.

The PL also said that Delia was against the creation of new jobs that were being created and that were attracted foreign workers, and against new sectors such as blockchain and artificial intelligence.

The PL said that the lack of ideas that the PN had have resulted in the opposition leader in supporting mistaken theories that economists have already said don't make sense.  One such notion, the PL said, was that poverty was being created by a rise in population.  The governing party said that this was not the case, and that on the contrary people were comign to Malta because the country is advancing and leaving more money in everyone's pockets.

The PL said that Delia is annoyed that the country is doing well and almost takes it against the Maltese people for making "economic choices".  In reality, the PL said, that the people were making political, economic and social choices because they knew that Malta is going in the right direction.