After years of political neglect in Gozo, the Nationalist government is carrying out petty projects in a desperate attempt to win over the Gozitans now that the country is approaching a general election, Labour’s main spokesman for Gozo Anton Refalo said in a statement.

In fact, the projects are neither long-term, nor aimed at improving the general situation in Gozo, but only point towards the general election, said Dr Refalo.

The recent scheme that is supposedly intended to encourage more Maltese to go to Gozo forms part of the Nationalist Party’s petty policies, he said. It is foreign tourists that Gozo needs, Dr Refalo added, and yet Investment, Industry and IT Minister Austin Gatt seems to want to keep foreigners in Malta, since this scheme does not apply to them.

Referring to the manufacturing industry, Dr Refalo said that the Prime Minister had announced that to attract more investment to Malta, apart from the Lm2.3m allocated to Malta Enterprise, the government was allocating another Lm1m from EU funding for this sector. Of this Lm1 million, 25 per cent would be dedicated to Gozo, Dr Refalo said.

He described this scheme as another election gimmick and said that while the government was saying that Lm2.3 million would be allocated to incentivise Maltese companies, the Prime Minister failed to tell Gozitans that they would only get Lm160,000, even though they had higher transport costs than the Maltese.