PN promises compensation for all injustices suffered, sets up grievances board

The Nationalist Party will be receiving and investigating complaints of injustices as the party pledges compensation to people with work-related grievances.

Chief PN spokesperson Peter Agius said on Wednesday that all injustices suffered at work, under the present Labour administration and past Nationalist administrations, will be compensated if the party is elected to government.

Agius said the PN has set up a board of experts who will be receiving and working on complaints submitted by individuals or groups.

Agius said the board would also propose alternative policies to avoid future incidents.

He said that there are around 700 members of the armed forces that have been waiting for justice for over three years, and cases where the Ombudsman gave a ruling, but due to political interference, no remedy was offered.

READ ALSO: Government to continue repaying police officials, port workers for past injustices

PN candidate Roselyn Borg Knight, said that the PN would be a proactive government and that it is working on a number of proposals, that prove that it is ready to govern.

She emphasised that any injustice suffered, leads to an impact on one’s mental and physical health, and also on one’s family.

PN candidate Ivan Castillo said that the board has already started working on addressing past injustices. Castillo stated that a PN government would assure equality at the work place and ‘equal pay for work of equal value’.

The PN proposal resembles what the incoming Labour administration did in 2013 when it set up a number of grievances boards to address past injustices.

However, such ad hoc boards had been criticised in 2015 by then Ombudsman Joseph Said Pullicino. In his annual report, the Ombudsman had said the main parties should work together to strengthen the office of the Ombudsman and the Administrative Tribunal to encourage people to take their complaints there rather than have new boards set up everytime there is a change in administration.

But Agius was unfazed by the criticism, insisting that the autonomy of the institutions should be respected. Agius criticised the Labour administration for defying the Ombudsman by not implementing the recommendations made.