Prime Minister calls Simon Busuttil a liar

The Egrant story continues to hold sway in the hothouse of Maltese politics.

On the one hand, the revelation by MaltaToday that the company Egrant, which many had suspected is owned by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, actually belongs to Brian Tonna, the head of Nexia BT, was openly disbelieved by Opposition leader Simon Busuttil, who was speaking at Ghaxaq.

But on the other hand, speaking at Rabat and addressing him across the intervening miles of countryside, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called Dr Busuttil a ‘liar’.

Dr Muscat blamed himself for allowing the rumours to spread unchecked, but said that today we have the proof Egrant does not belong to him.

Dr Muscat claimed Dr Busuttil was lying because he has nothing else to offer.

Nevertheless, Dr Muscat continued, he holds no grudges against Dr Busuttil and he urged the PN leader to join him in keeping the political game free from dirt.

In a rather cryptic way, Dr Muscat continued by offering friendship to ‘many’ in the Opposition camp who are thinking of voting PL in the coming election and who are ready to join the Moviment. Such people must be welcomed by the Labour supporters. Such people must not be scared off.

Dr Muscat began by congratulating PBS for the Eurovision night and wished all success to Claudia Faniello, the winner.

He then said his wife, Michelle, was not accompanying him because his children are passing through a trauma - for the first time in their lives, they are facing a school exam.

The government too is facing exams all the time and it is getting brilliant results, as it obtained in the Fitch rating.

One little noticed statement in the Fitch report speaks about government guarantees, about which a lot of noise was made. Fitch pointed out these guarantees are being made to profitable companies. But when the government took over Enemalta, this was losing €7 million and was far from profitable.

Fitch gave Malta a positive outlook. Malta will get even better more work, more jobs, better wages, a better quality of life. This government has given Malta the best economy it ever had. 20 new jobs are being created every day.

Dr Muscat told of a visit he paid to a gaming company last week and said he was told this company had doubled its employees to 350 in just a year. It needs more young people.

Dr Muscat switched over to the environment. People must judge the government not on the number of applications received but on the number of decisions reached (by the Planning Authority).

Since he was speaking at Rabat he spoke about the application by Toni Bezzina, the PN MP, for a villa just outside Mdina, in ODZ area. Simon Busuttil will come to regret the support he has given to Mr Bezzina.

He added that many football clubs would want to have their own training grounds and they are all approaching the government. In all cases, the land they would want is in ODZ. They tell the government that the Opposition promised them an ODZ site in each case. But the government insists a site within the Development Zone be found first and this is creating a lot of arguments around the Cabinet table.

Dr Busuttil has made many noises regarding the draft bill on press freedom. But where was Dr Busuttil on the last day of the previous legislature when a number of Labour youths had commented during the Day of Silence or when in the last hours of that legislature the police had arrested Daphne Caruana Galizia (without mentioning her by name)?

This government will change the law so that such things do not happen again.