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Michaela Muscat
Alternattiva Demokratika’s chairperson Harry Vassallo has slammed the “gutless” government for not considering rent reform a priority.
In a press conference held yesterday morning at the party’s headquarters, Vassallo re-emphasised the importance of a complete rent reform which did not just stop at alterations in the legislation.
AD launched the rent reform campaign last June with the premise of collecting enough signatures to coerce the government in holding a referendum about the issue in question.
The Green party appears not to be not deterred by the fact they have only yet collected one-third of the projected 30,000 signatures needed to call for an abrogative referendum.
Edward Fenech, AD’s spokesperson for economic affairs told MaltaToday that enough funds had been collected to start delivering the leaflets and petitions door to door as from the first week of September.
Fenech dismissed the pre-budget document as being “all talk and noncommittal” as government “didn’t even bother to talk about the rent reform.”
Harry Vassallo declared that the government’s delaying tactics was obviously a ploy to avoid a serious reform to the rent laws. Suspicious that the government only intends to “tinker with the law” he warned that “the statement sounds ominously like a threat to return to intervention in the property market.”
Family and Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina promised a White Paper on rent reform would be published beginning of 2006. Yet the absence of any concrete evidence in the pre-budget document proves that “nothing substantial is being planned,” according to Vassallo, who also found time to batter the 1995 reforms saying they left much to be desired.
michaelam@newsworksltd.com
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