Opposition leader Joseph Muscat yesterday called on Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to “stop taxing the people dry” and address, rather than shy away from, the country’s most pressing problems.

Speaking in Parliament a week after the government presented its budget for 2011, Dr Muscat said scathingly:

“Dr Gonzi’s predecessor as PN leader, Eddie Fenech Adami, was a far better Prime Minister than Lawrence Gonzi will ever be, because he always kept the government’s finances under control.

“Under Dr Gonzi’s leadership, the country’s economy is going from bad to worse. He has repeatedly blamed the financial crisis as the main reason why the country’s economy is on a constant downward spiral.

“Just when we all thought Malta has now emerged from the crisis, Dr Gonzi has just announced that we are still shrouded in an economic crisis, despite telling us for several months that we are moving forward and the economy is growing. Malta is calling for a strong leader who can keep the country’s finances sound,” Dr Muscat said.

The Labour Party (PL) leader said that, thanks to Dr Gonzi, last year:

• Malta’s wages remained the lowest in the EU

• Water and electricity tariffs were the EU’s highest

• Malta’s debt increased by €153 million, and

• Interest on the government’s debts stood at €500,000 a day.

Dr Muscat urged the people not to be fooled by the Prime Minister’s reply to his speech in Parliament tomorrow.

“Dr Gonzi will inevitably tell us to take a glance at what is happening in other countries, and the harsh austerity measures other EU citizens are facing. But aren’t the water and electricity tariffs the biggest austerity measure the people of Malta have faced in the past 25 years?” he asked.

In the meantime, Dr Gonzi has failed to implement the proposal which won him the general election of 2008 – that of reducing income tax, he added.

For over two and a half years now, the government has cited the financial recession as the reason behind the increase in the cost of living and water and electricity tariffs. However, the country’s economy is not made up of figures and statistics, but of families, pensioners, students and employees, Dr Muscat reiterated.

“Under Dr Gonzi’s leadership between 2004 and 2007, before the outbreak of the financial crisis, the country’s economy was already on a downward spiral, and it is yet to recover.

“Three years later, and despite getting rid of the Malta Shipyards, introducing the steepest bills in Malta’s history and other austerity measures, Malta’s economy is growing by a mere 0.1 per cent,” Dr Muscat commented, while predicting that the government will terminate its legislature in 2013 with debt of €4,700 million.

This is why, Mr Muscat pinpointed, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Malta is the world’s 16th most indebted country.

Thanks to the increases in excise duty on cement, petrol, alcohol and tobacco, as announced in Budget 2011, the government will be raking in a combined total of €23 million from the people.

Addressing the Prime Minister, Dr Muscat said: “You are the only person in Malta who is not realising just how tough living in Malta has become”.

He warned the public not to believe everything that was promised in last week’s budget, as even though past budgets promised too much, little was done to rectify the country’s most pressing problems.

According to Dr Muscat, among the government’s plans for this year, as announced in last year’s budget, and which were not implemented in 2010, there are four child care centres, two micro enterprise parks, a €1.5 million blood transfusion centre, the Marsaxlokk breakwater, a sporting complex in Qawra, a radiology unit, a new MCAST campus and an upgrade of the bus terminuses in Valletta, Victoria and Bugibba.

“It is the European Year for combating poverty and social exclusion, but never have Maltese families felt so poor. It is pitiful that while the government has removed energy benefit subsidies for 2011, he has given employees a mere €1.16 increase in their weekly wages.

“But perhaps people can breathe a sigh of relief that the works for a new parliament have started,” Dr Muscat commented in a sarcastic tone.

He then called on the government to publicly state its intention for Air Malta’s future, “a company which is suffering from a history of bad decisions by current and former PN governments”.

Despite much fanfare, the PL leader continued, Gozo has continued to be neglected. For every 10 employed people in Malta, eight are employed in Gozo. There are 16 unemployed people in Gozo for every 10 unemployed people in Malta.

Environment will rank high in the PL’s political agenda should it be elected to govern in 2013, said Dr Muscat.

“Perhaps only then will people living in the south of Malta be able to breathe clean air,” said Dr Muscat, adding that “11 years after the problem first surfaced, the black dust issue has yet to be resolved”.

Despite all the government’s constant boasting about its investment in education, said Dr Muscat, there are still 40 per cent of adolescents annually who fail to make it past post-secondary education, while approximately 2,000 students leave school before the compulsory age of 16, “the highest ratio in the EU”.

Instead of burdening the people with taxes, the government could have generated extra revenue by cutting down on the €4 million commission it gave when awarding the power station extension tender, the €2.5 million it spent on the “bridge to nowhere” breakwater and the €2 million it allocated to eradicate VAT corruption.

“Only the PL can rescue Malta from the mediocrity which it finds itself in. Hopefully we are only two and a half years away,” Dr Muscat concluded.