We need a reality check on what we want for the future of our country, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech said on Sunday.

In an interview on party media, Grech said that he is concerned with the amount of young people saying that they do not want to live in Malta anymore.

He said that in total 70% of the nation’s youth are considering leaving the island, adding that this situation is the result of the Labour Party’s economic plan based on cheap labour.

Grech said that apart from robbing youths of their opportunities, Prime Minister Robert Abela’s government has also adopted the politics of theft in other departments, such as the nation’s quality of life and sense of security and peace of mind.

On these points, the leader said during the most recent power cuts, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli said that they were being caused by the overheating tarmac however “at the same time was also telling us to not use our air-conditions.”

Delving into the topic of the politics adopted by the PL, Grech said that even Finance Minister Clyde Caruana “who was one of the few decent people [in the PL] who were trying to say the right thing” was caught lying.

The PN leader was referring to recent news that apart from his €21,500 monthly salary Air Malta’s Executive Chairman receives a director's fee of €10,000 each year.

Going back to the cheap labour based economic plan, Grech said that “I have nothing against foreigners” but that the government has “in the last years increased the population, without investing in the country’s infrastructure,” which in turn has increased traffic.

Moreover “our country is in a bad state, wherever you see there is dirt.” Hence, he said that the nation is doing its job to separate the waste, but that the government is not enforcing its collection.

“We need an authentic government, that is mature and serious…a safe pair of hands”, he said, “and a Prime Minister which has the heart of the nation as his priority.”

Here he said that the PN always had a plan. Grech reminded how it was a Nationalist government which brought new economic niches such as iGaming and the pharmaceutical industry.

Moreover, the PN had also asked institutions to develop a programme of studies which would cater for when LufthansaTechnik was going to start operating.

Bearing witness to the PN’s past planning, Grech spoke of how despite not having the skilled human resources, the previous PN administration did not see resorting to foreign workers as their first priority as the Maltese youth started to get skilled through educational courses.

“Like this, the Maltese youth were guaranteed a job as soon as they left their educational institution,” he said.

“It is clear that Robert Abela, has given up on governing and does not want to look at the people,” he said, adding that these were also the same words that late Jean Paul Sofia’s parents had told him in parliament after the government initially voted against a public inquiry into the tragic construction death.

Moreover, he said that currently the PL is having “some big internal problems” of which even the biggest labourites are well aware of as they write about it on their social media.