Labour warns gas hike will 'increase poverty, suffering'

In a statement issued today, Agius-Decelis insisted that the increase in the price of gas was continuing to cause “suffering and poverty among the most vulnerable part of society, particularly among those elderly people who had a limited pension”.

The Labour spokesperson explained how the latest increase in gas prices had been approved when there were already 22% of men and 19% of women who were already facing the risk of poverty.

“This poverty has been created with the bad policies that different Nationalist Governments have implemented in the last few years,” Agius-Decelis lamented.

He accused the Nationalist Government of implementing a policy for the elderly sector which was “devoid of any social conscience and of any soul” and did not calculate its impact on those who are most vulnerable in Maltese society.

Agius-Decelis lamented that elderly people were already suffering from the ever-mounting cost of living which was being caused “unfairly” due to the Government’s carelessness and the lack of serious leadership.

One of the cases mentioned by the Labour spokesperson in his statement was the case of out-of-stock pills, with a lot of elderly people having to make “huge sacrifices to buy them out of their pension cheques”.

In addition to these, Agius-Decelis explained, there were also increases in prices of essential items such as gas, water, electricity, petrol, diesel, which “continued to hit had elderly people”

Maltese elderly deserved “much more better than the manner in which they are being treated after working and giving their utmost to raise a family and to give a contribution to society,” Agius-Decelis concluded his statement.