The Government cannot shirk its responsibility to facilitate economic change, the PN said in a statement Tuesday.

The PN said that the Government seems to have given up on its capability to bring economic change in our country as it “shirked the responsibility of facilitating the economic change and threw it on the private sector. “

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana confirmed this, when in comments during a seminar organised by the Central Bank of Malta, he said that the private sector should increase its efforts to create a new economic direction for Malta.

The PN said that the private sector has a crucial role in the economic activity of our country, but that the government “cannot release the responsibility from its hands to, among others, offer the necessary incentives, the reduction of -bureaucracy and therefore, improves the 'ease of doing business', which strengthens the reputation of our country, and which focuses on how it will improve governance. This is important because, for the private sector to succeed, it needs an environment of economic, political and financial stability.”

 “For many years, the Nationalist Party has been at the forefront, together with many constituted bodies and employers' unions, telling the Minister of Finance and the Labour Government that this policy does not work. Now, the Minister is once again admitting that the Government's policy has failed.”

The PN said that Caruana’s comments “claiming that our country needs a new economic direction” do not coincide with the comments of Prime Minister Robert Abela.

 “Clyde Caruana and Robert Abela's Government have no idea how to solve the problem they themselves have created, rather they will continue to make it worse.”