Gozo Channel Ltd has made a profit of €942,000 under the current administration, Gozo Minister Anton Refalo said yesterday. Speaking in Parliament during the debate on the Gozo Ministry, Dr Refalo said the company had racked up losses amounting to €707,000 under a PN government.
The Gozo Minister said everything was doom and gloom for the Opposition. If the PL was really doing everything wrong in Gozo how could it have achieved such an astounding result in the general and EP elections?
The PN had no vision on Gozo. IT had not come up with a single concrete proposal for the island. It was was not credible when it said it would have completed the tunnel project in the three years taken for studies to be carried out. It had taken 17 years to build Mater Dei hospital with concrete normally used for sidewalks.
In 2009 the PN government had applied for a permit to build new law courts but the project was never taken into the next phase. The project is now in an advanced stage.
A request for proposals for a new swimming pool will be issued in a few days. The complex will not only be used for waterpolo but will also cater for the elderly and disabled persons as well as school children.
Dr Refalo said the Gozo tourism sector was booming. Last year the sector generated some €180 million.
PL MP Franco Mercieca said he did not agree with comments that Labour had wasted two and a half years on the permanent link, asking instead what the PN had done in its 25 years in power.
Even when it had come up with the idea some years ago, the PN was acting out of panic, fearing that the PL would take over the bridge/tunnel idea. Dr Mercieca said he hoped that Gozitans would no longer have to beg to politicians. “I believe that with a permanent link Gozitans will no longer have restrictions, whether it is education, health services or jobs. They will not remain second class citizens.”
Parliamentary Secretary Justyne Caruana said the government was working to better the lives of persons with disabilities and to improve their chances of finding employment. The government had also opened the first KNPD office in Gozo and was offering specialised training and empowerment programmes. All disabled people are now benefitting from lower public transport rates after a system that discriminated between people with different disabilities was addressed. New services for the elderly have also been introduced, including residential homes in the community.
Veteran PL MP Joe Debono Grech said the PL did not only make promises, it followed them through. He said the PN criticised the CIttadella project because of the lack of access to the law courts. However they had known from well before that the project would be carried out – the restoration project had in fact started under the PN. So why had they not relocated the law courts elsewhere before the project kicked off?
Mr Debono Grech also said the government had to redo roads that had been badly constructed. The agricultural sector had always been neglected under the PN. His criticism of the PN went back to the 1970s and even the 1950’s, with the PL MP even mentioning the Queen at one point. He also announced that he would not be standing for the next election.