Updated | PN lashes out at government for unchanged rent prices

The PN criticised Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for not lowering the price of housing rent from the first month of the year

The PN criticised Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for not reducing rent from the first month of the year
The PN criticised Prime Minister Joseph Muscat for not reducing rent from the first month of the year

The Nationalist Party has lashed out at the government for failing to lower housing rent prices, as it had promised to do in the 2017 budget.

The PN said that it was the current government itself that had imposed the increases at the start of the legislature, and pointed out that Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil had promised to reduce rent bills if the party were to be elected in the upcoming election.

“Already last year, Nationalist Party Leader Simon Busuttil made a commitment that a new Nationalist Government will return rental prices to what they were before Muscat raised them so aggressively that some families are now paying double and even triple the rent they used to,” PN said.

Last September, shadow minister for social policy Paula Mifsud Bonnici said that many families on a low income were now finding it difficult to pay their social housing rent. “In many cases, the rent has been increased to €500 per month, and someone on minimum wage would only be left with around €200 each month for living expenses,” she had said.

As part of the 2017 Budget, finance minister Edward Scicluna had said that rents on social housing will be reversed to what they were in 2013.

The PN criticised Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Joseph Muscat for not reducing rent from the first month of the year, indicating the effect the prices have on vulnerable people.

“Regardless of [Joseph] Muscat’s promise, the tax that the government introduced on the most vulnerable families is still in place and their rent for the first month of the year has not been lowered. It is pointless for Muscat to now promise to hand out a lump sum to these families at some point this year; families need the guaranteed relief immediately.”

The government had promised when it announced Budget 2017 that throughout the year, the rent of social housing would be slashed to €185, and that tenants will be reimbursed for any increase in rent that they would have had to pay from 2013 onwards.

In a response to the PN’s criticism, the government insisted that the budgetary measure will be implemented throughout the year.

The government hit back at the Opposition, saying it was “shamefully hypocritical” for it to criticise such a measure given the decisions taken by the previous Nationalist government.

“It is shamefully hypocritical for the Nationalist Opposition to talk about the implementation of a budgetary measure that will leave more money in tenants’’ pockets, when it was the previous government which increased the previous minimum rent as well as water and electricity bills,” the government said in a statement.