‘Is there an ulterior motive?’, Prime Minister questions on PN promise to buy Ħondoq

Prime Minister Robert Abela has questioned whether there is a motive beyond the environmental in the Nationalist Party’s proposal to buy the Ħondoq ir-Rummien area from its current owners.

In a telephone interview on party media on Sunday, Abela found it hard to believe how a political party could make such promises without costing them, and pointed out that the person advising PN leader Bernard Grech was the same person who was a part of the 2006 local plan exercise which allowed development at Ħondoq in the first place.

“Is there an ulterior motive behind this person advising the party to buy this piece of land?”, Abela questioned.

Abela in fact spent the bulk of his telephone interview criticising the opposition, lamenting at how the Nationalist Party had two major problems – negativity and lack of credibility.

He said that the survey carried out as part of the State of the Nation conference had shown what the people want, and questioned how the Opposition could find “nothing positive” to say about the country.

“How is that possible?”, Abela questioned.

“I was at the Council of Europe where leaders of other countries praised us for the vaccination drive and the handling of the pandemic, and then the Opposition leader gets up in Parliament and doesn’t have a single positive word to say about our country”, he lamented.

He said that he doesn’t want the positive words for himself or for the government, but said that it is the people who deserve such positivity as a thank you for how they gave everything to ensure that the country arrives where it is.

Abela said that the PN has two major problems: its negativity and its lack of credibility, noting that this is the major difference between the PL and the PN: the PL, he said, has the credentials to solve the country’s problems, including those created by the PN when they were in government.

The Prime Minister then turned his criticism onto the PN for its promise to purchase the land at Ħondoq ir-Rummien in Gozo, which the party revealed when quizzed on the matter by The Malta Independent.

“Grech said they will buy Ħondoq if they are elected. Then he was asked how much it would cost, and couldn’t answer. Is this seriousness? We are talking about millions of euros here”, Abela said.

“Who is advising Bernard Grech?”, Abela questioned rhetorically after reminding that it was the PN which had changed the local plans in 2006 which would allow development at Ħondoq.

“It’s the same person who was part of that 2006 local plan exercise. Is there an ulterior motive behind this person advising the party to buy this piece of land? Does the PN leader have a different scope when suggesting this?”

Abela said that the government’s position is that it is strongly against development at Ħondoq – reflecting what Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri told The Malta Independent on Sunday this weekend.

He also criticized the PN’s recent promise to refund €50 million in electricity bills after a leaked NAO report showed that ARMS had overcharged some consumers on their utility bills.

“You can’t make promises based on a couple of sentences out of a leaked report”, Abela said.

Asked about the recent Fitch ratings, which gave Malta an A+ rating with a stable outlook, Abela said that the results are good, but that the government must continue introducing changes.

He took another swipe at the Opposition, saying that PN leader Grech had said that the country’s fiscal situation is not sustainable, but that Fitch then said that complete opposite.

Abela said that the Fitch assessment cannot be taken in isolation, and must be seen as a confirmation that a good base to work with is being left.

“In the coming days we will have the opportunity to show what we want for the next 10 years and beyond that, particularly in the environmental sector”, Abela said

“The next 10 years must be the ones which take us to being a centre of excellence”, Abela said.

He said that Malta has so far reached and surpassed the average, but that the country now needs to aspire for more. “If we don’t aspire for more, we will stagnate, and once we stagnate, we will start moving backwards – which we don’t want”, he said.