Simon Busuttil repeats PN will not axe public sector jobs

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil insisted yesterday that the PN would not dismiss public sector employees but that the sector needed to be reduced gradually.

Dr Busuttil was presenting the PN’s pre-budget document entitled ‘Let’s all succeed… Together’ – to the Malta Council for Social and Economic Development.

He said the PN is presenting concrete proposals on different themes, all with the aim of improving the quality of life of families and businesses.

Dr Busuttil said this was the second time that the PN was presenting its pre-budget proposals from the Opposition. The PN document included several proposals that have been put forward by the social partners.

The PN has so far published five documents: Two on the budget, one on good governance, one on the economy and one on the traffic problem. Dr Busuttil said his economic policy is two-sided, based on the creation but also the fair distribution of wealth. The pre-budget document has three sections: An analysis of the current economic situation, the challenges that must be overcome together and 91 proposals.

The PN is once again insisting that energy bills should be reduced and that families and businesses should pay bills that reflect the low international prices and the use of the interconnector and the BWSC plant.

Clarifying comments he made in the past few days, Dr Busuttil said the PN was in no way suggesting that it would sack public sector workers. He said, however, that the country should go back to the economic trend of seeing the public sector workforce reduced gradually, so as to reduce public spending.

This government, he said, had increased public spending in an exaggerated way by employing hundreds into positions of trust of useless roles. Public spending had increased against the background of a great lack of accountability, responsibility and good governance. €4 million would have been better spent on cancer patients than on a single individual, Dr Busuttil said.

The PN leader also accused the government of pushing social justice aside by increasing social housing rent rates.

Dr Busuttil reiterated that the country needed to study the possibility of having an alternative public transport system, with the PN looking at the possibility of a tramway or light railway.