The Nationalist Party has said that the Budget presented on Monday shows that the government has “given up” on governing the country.

In a press conference on Tuesday, the PN finance spokesperson Jerome Caruana Cilia described the Budget as one without direction, solutions, and vision.

He said that there were measures which were good, but that on the whole the Budget did not address some of the country’s biggest crises: inflation, traffic, waste, unchecked overpopulation, education, health, and a lack of good governance.

Caruana Cilia said that it is a Budget from “a government which has clearly given up on doing what it should and governing.”

He questioned the government’s slogan for the Budget – ‘A Just Malta’ – and noted the irony in this.  He questioned how just Malta was for the relatives of Jean Paul Sofia, for those who were on waiting lists while the government paid millions to Vitals and Steward, and for those who use Malta’s roads at the same time as people who were given a driver’s license in exchange for their vote, amongst others.

Caruana Cilia said that a week has passed since an Appeals Court confirmed that the hospitals deal was fraudulent, adding that the public on Monday expected the government to explain how it will get its millions back.

“We heard nothing,” he said.

He said that Malta’s debt will rise by another billion next year, to €11.2 billion as per the government’s own projections and that the people will be paying around €4 million in tax funds to make up the interest on this figure.

He said that the people expected a new economic model to indicate the new direction for the country: new economic niches, new value-added jobs, new well-paying sectors – but they heard nothing.

Caruana Cilia continued that the Budget had nothing for the self-employed, business owners, almost nothing in education, forgot about the middle class, and reduced investment in tourism and infrastructure.

He said that the PN is ready to work to help those most vulnerable together with the business sector, self-employed and middle class to grow. “We give you the tools for you to achieve success,” he said.

The PN’s economy spokesperson Ivan Bartolo meanwhile outlined his thoughts on the Budget, saying that while there were positive social proposals in the Budget, it isn’t enough.

Bartolo noted how the government is, despite proposals to the contrary, continuing to insist that the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) is taxed.  He said that the people will be paying a total of €35 million in taxes on an allowance which is meant to make up for inflation rates in the previous year.

He noted how there was no reference or commitment to the new Outpatients Unit, and that the actual increase being given on pensions is of €2.19 per week, as the remainder is the COLA.

Furthermore he questioned what the government is doing to solve the traffic on Malta’s roads and said that a statement that the police was fighting organised crime was manifestly false because “organised crime is in Castille” and the PN is doing more than the police to fight that.

On population size, Bartolo noted that Caruana’s aim is for jobs to increase by 4.4%, which means that around 11,500 people are needed to fill these vacancies.

“Where will they come from?  It isn’t true that the government wants to change the economic model,” he said.

The PN’s employment spokesperson Ivan Castillo said that the Budget offered no solutions on how to make the country more competitive, productive, and offer a more skilled workforce – the latter being a particularly significant concern of businesses.

The Budget, he said, ignores Malta’s brain drain, the middle class, the self-employed, and the working poor which he said has doubled, as per information given during Caruana’s speech.

“Today is Halloween and the people woke up scared of a government which has no vision for the country, the opposite of a PN which has a vision for where the country needs to go,” Castillo said.