Labour leader Alfred Sant yesterday accused the government of being in the grip of abuse and corruption and gave his reasons to back up the argument.

Speaking at a social activity at Ghaxaq, the Labour leader said the Prime Minister had always denied there was anything irregular in the building of the Mater Dei Hospital. Yet these past days it had not been only the Labour Party that was insisting there have been irregularities – the former MP and president of the Nationalist Party Dr Frank Portelli has also been referring to corruption in the building of the hospital.

Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech and Minister Tonio Borg, replying to these accusations, had come out saying there was nothing to investigate but after last Sunday, when he (Dr Sant) referred to the subject, the Prime Minister had changed his tune and announced that he had written to the Police Commissioner calling on him to investigate.

Dr Sant said the government could not show more confusion than when making such a U-turn. He hoped the investigation would be serious because what was involved was millions of liri. The Mater Dei Hospital was to have cost Lm80 million but would end up costing Lm300 million, he added.

The Labour leader also referred to the proposed golf course that the Prime Minister had suggested for Ghajn Tuffieha. But the Prime Minister was now seeing the election coming and was panicking. He was now proposing a nature reserve instead of the golf course.

The government had spent some Lm500,000 on studies related to the golf course proposal, which has now been ditched. This had to be considered against a background of other projects that had been promised but not carried out, such as City Gate, the opera house site, parliament and the Cirkewwa and Mgarr ferry terminals.

Dr Sant also referred to hunting and recalled the government’s boasts that in its negotiations with the EU it had obtained an assurance that spring hunting would continue. Yet when hunters had shot down protected birds, the government had used this as a pretext to ban spring hunting, penalising those who had abused the rules and also those who had not.

The cost of living was another problem that the government was making worse with the taxes it was imposing. The new system controlling traffic in Valletta was heavy on revenue-raising.

Labour, Dr Sant said, would deal with the cost of living and create employment opportunities. Families would get what they deserved in health and education, he added.