Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech questioned who Prime Minister Robert Abela “is covering for” after he refused to appoint a public inquiry into the tragic death of Jean Paul Sofia.

Sofia died in a building collapse last December. Nobody has been charged with the incident yet.

Speaking in a political activity in Mqabba, Grech began his speech by speaking about a remark made by the Prime Minister in a political rally last week, where Abela said that he had spoken to a member of the judiciary about matters relating to sentencing.

Describing it as a “worrying admission,” Grech said that “what is more worrying than this is that he is yet to recognise what he did wrong.”

Grech said that if Abela wants to intervene in the law courts, he should give them more resources and better training, not seeing what magistrates and judges should decide.

“Imagine what Robert Abela is doing where there isn’t a security of tenure enshrined in the constitution.  Imagine what he’s doing with our journalists, editors, media, and wherever someone has the power to reduce their authority.  This is why we need to continue having a truly independent media with journalists and editors with a backbone: so we do not let him do what he did with the national broadcaster,” Grech said.

The PN leader said that even when people point out that he is wrong, Abela continues to be stubborn and does as he pleases.

“We all remember the tragic death of Jean Paul Sofia. This week Abela answered a parliamentary question by Jerome Caruana Cilia where he said that he would not appoint a public inquiry into the case. So, of course, I ask: what are you hiding?  Who are you covering for? Who has to shoulder responsibility?  Why don’t you want to do a public inquiry to find the truth and stop these deaths? Or does the life of a youngster, a woman who died in her home, a worker have no value to you?”

“We will keep persisting because we want a just country - a country where there is the law but also the enforcement of the law,” Grech said.

Grech said that passing a law is one thing but enforcement is another matter entirely.  He cited the recently announced increase in fines, saying that it is a step forward for there to be a bigger deterrent for poor driving. “But raising fines isn’t enough: there has to be constant enforcement, not enforcement right up until a year before a general election,” he said.

Turning to the matter of medicines being out of stock, Grech said that the government had said that the matter would be solved by February – this month.

“February has arrived and I still receiving messages from people,” Grech said.

He said that one person had contacted him to say that medicine for chemotherapy was out of stock, while another had told him that oral antibiotics at Mater Dei Hospital are also out of stock.

He added that today a nurse’s canteen and a store are being used as hospital wards, a far cry from the “state of the art” health service that Malta had in the past.

“This is the state of our health under Robert Abela, because he prefers using money on his friends, or statues of dinosaurs, or to open the same road four times, or for personal propaganda, rather than for you to have a better state of health,” Grech said.

Grech said that instead of paying millions to Steward Health Care, that money should be voted to the Maltese and Gozitan people and that the government should give the people their hospitals back. 

Grech mentioned a specific case in the education sector to continue to support his point on money being spent where it shouldn’t be.

“Last Thursday we saw the call of a mother who wanted to send her child with down syndrome for the first day of Kinder 1 but couldn’t because there was no LSE available.  That’s where you need to invest money, Robert Abela, not to make yourself look good,” Grech said.

“When you see all this it’s obvious that our quality of life is degrading.  Robert Abela wants to introduce abortion, abandoned the health system, essential medicines are missing, wants to pick a standards commissioner he likes, is doing nothing to fight inflation, and is doing nothing to make our roads safer,” the PN leader said.

“Our debt is over €9 billion: we have a deficit in our economic budget, in our justice, in our security, in our values, in our health system, in our safety, quality of life, right to live in a free manner and speak what you feel,” he added.

“That’s why we need to be there and remain there.  But we need you to change that,” he concluded.

PN MPs Rebekah Cilia and Ivan J Bartolo also addressed the political activity