Prime Minister Joseph Muscat attacked PN Leader Simon Busuttil this evening, stating that if Dr Busuttil would be as good a Prime Minister as he is a lawyer, then the country would be in trouble.

Dr Muscat took a shot at Simon Busuttil's interpretation of the magisterial decision yesterday. Dr Busuttil had said that Magistrate Aaron Bugeja has ruled that there is enough evidence to warrant a criminal investigation into the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff Keith Schembri, and the PM's consultant, Nexia BT Owner Brian Tonna. Dr Busuttil had said that he held documents which showed that that Mr Tonna received €166,800 from three Russians for the sale of Maltese Citizenship. The funds were passed into an account at Pilatus Bank belonging to Mr Tonna's British Virgin Island's Company (Willerby Trade inc.), he said.

Explaining his own interpretation, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that he spoke with a number of lawyers. "Yesterday there was a fuss regarding the company that, allegedly, Michelle or I own, that we supposedly received millions. Dr Busuttil went to the independent magistrate, and the magistrate said his (Dr Busuttil's) allegations have nothing to do with what he (the magistrate) was looking into. The magistrate said that since this has nothing to do with it, another magistrate must check and see if there are questions which the police must investigate.  What the PN leader tried to do yesterday, I hope, is the fruit of political desperation and not of his legal knowledge."

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was in San Gwann, addressing a political event.

Turning to the elections, he said that people will not vote on "stories and inventions," but will vote on the facts of the last four years and who has the best proposals for the future. "We have made mistakes, we are human and we learn from them. We have the best plan for the country"

Dr Muscat is on the campaign trail after calling a snap election, while his government has been under siege following allegations that his wife owns a Panama company (Egrant), and that his Chief of Staff took kickbacks for the IIP scheme.

Arriving at the venue, the Prime Minister was met with 'viva Labour' chants.

He said that the first five days of the campaign show how government is ready to continue governing in the coming years. "One would have thought that we would dedicate the first part of our campaign to what we have achieved, but I am pleased that we came out with our first five priorities already. These priorities will make a difference in peoples' lives."

He took a shot at PN Leader Simon Busuttil: "I am satisfied that people are seeing that our proposals are costed, we know where the money to pay for them will come from and how they will work, while others (referring to Dr Busuttil) came out with half proposals."

He said that the PN are "mudslinging instead of coming out with proposals showing that they are not ready for an electoral campaign, let alone to lead the country."

Dr Muscat said that the first legislature was used to expand the economy. "We wanted businesses to grow and employ more people. We started off with rising unemployment and now we have the lowest unemployment rate we have ever had."

He said that in four years of a PL government, the same number of jobs was created as were in the 15 years prior. 

He mentioned the IIP scheme, and said that only 30% of those funds were used with the rest planned to be leveraged to arrange all Maltese and Gozitan roads.

The Prime Minister said that once the Kappara project, which will see the bridges completed by September, concludes then the Marsa project will begin. "Aside from such projects, €20 million is used on other roads. If we keep to these €20 million per year spent on roads, we estimate we would need 27 years to complete all roads. We are now saying that we have enough funds to spend €100 million a year for seven years to arrange all roads."

He said that government will take over all the roads and local councils will not lose funds. He said local councils will take care of the maintenance of the roads. "An agency will be created focussing solely on these issues. We will go into PPPs, and we will not leave dangerous potholes in place for more than 24 hours before being filled." He also spoke about the need for wires to be placed underground and mentioned that a pilot project will be created to do so.

"We will bring EU funds so that contractors can buy apparatus for today's age, as there are contractors with 15-year-old equipment," he said, referring to those who handle road works.

Halfway through the programme, a girl walked up to the Prime Minister, and handed him a flower.

The Prime Minister spoke of cleanliness and upkeep, stressing that everyone must carry responsibility. "There are situations where the local council or government don't clean areas enough, but then there are situations where people just litter, and then there are situations where large crowds gather which cause its own situations." He spoke of an agency that takes care of the cleanliness of the country. If there is an area which needs to be cleaned three times a day, due to the amount of people who attend that area, then there will be a team of people - as we have done in certain areas already - who would go in the evening and clean at a certain time.  This, instead of waiting till the morning to clean up.

Turning to tax-cuts, the Prime Minister said that if one lowers taxes sustainably, then income will increase not decrease. Explaining this, he said that funds go back into peoples' pockets who will spend more, which will again result in taxes being paid.  He said that the same amount of income, or possibly more, would be achieved. "We would have problems if someone said that one would cut taxes by half. What we said is that every working person would receive a tax refund."

He said that the highest refund would go to those people with low wages, and the amount given in the refund would reduce for higher incomes. He stressed that this will be given to every working person, and not on a family basis.

He said that the refund will be given to whoever works.

Turning to public holidays, he said that these were taken away back in 2005 without any mandate. "We are saying that we will give them back to the people gradually, and we will help businesses to not be negatively impacted. We are also saying that we will discuss whether there would be the concept of a bank holiday or included with a workers' leave. "I understand those who say that this should have been discussed, but 12 years have passed since they were taken away. I was pressured back in 2013 to introduce this, but we didn't back then as I didn't believe the economy could handle it. Today, if we don't introduce it now, when can we give these holidays back to the workers." 

 Transport Minister Joe Mizzi said that government focussed on projects which had to be done, and built roads to relieve inconvenience. He said however, that miracles were made with the funds they had. He said now they have funds to do the works proposed.

Speaking about Kappara project, the Minister said that every week those involved would meet at his office to coordinate. “We showed that we have capable people, we could do a good project.” 

Photos by Baskal Mallia