As has become the norm under the Government led by Robert Abela, in February 2026 - just as in the first month of the new year - our country's debt continued to increase, the PN said in a statement on Friday.
"Confirmation that, month after month, the debt with which Robert Abela's Labour Government is burdening the country is continuing to rise and reach new records emerges from the latest government finance figures published today by the National Statistics Office (NSO) for February. These statistics show that debt has now reached €11,445 million," the PN said.
The PN said that this figure of over €11 billion in debt at the end of last month is equivalent to more than €28,200 in debt for every Maltese and Gozitan citizen and means that debt has increased by €509 million compared to the same month in 2025.
"Malta is currently under an Excessive Deficit Procedure, into which it was placed by the Labour Government in July 2024. This is despite the fact that last April, the Minister for Finance had boasted that Malta would exit this procedure early," the PN said.
The PN said that the high level of debt imposed on the people by Robert Abela means that, since becoming Prime Minister, he has accumulated more debt than all previous Prime Ministers, both Labour and Nationalist, combined.
"With the policies of the Labour Government, debt will continue to rise in the coming years, reaching a new record of over €14 billion by 2028, as announced by the Minister for Finance himself in the latest budget. This would mean that while Robert Abela has already doubled the debt accumulated by his predecessors, within three years he will have tripled it," the party said.
"Alongside the record increase in debt, another record is also rising - the interest that we are having to pay from our taxes on government debt. By the end of February, this amounted to €51.3 million. According to the Government's projections in Budget 2026, this year the Maltese people are expected to pay between €340 million and €350 million in interest on public debt - equivalent to around €1 million per day in interest alone."
"The Government is continuing to increase debt despite the fact that it is now widely recognised that nothing is being done to address the country's most pressing problems, including the rising cost of living, ongoing infrastructure issues, persistent traffic congestion, pollution in our seas, and ever-lengthening queues in hospitals."
"While the country's debt continues to grow unchecked, and interest payments keep rising, Ministers and those close to the Labour Government continue to enrich themselves, reckless spending persists, and more scandals continue to emerge - clear evidence of a Government that is tired and has lost all control of the country's direction," the party said.
The statement was signed by PN MPs Adrian Delia and Jerome Caruana Cilia, who are the Shadow Minister for Finance and Shadow Minister for the Economy and Enterprise respectively.