Muscat defiant on IIP, says PN ‘tarnished Malta’s name’

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is showing no signs of ceding to pressure from the Nationalist Party to repeal a citizenship scheme that has been criticised by the European Parliament and the European Commission.

In an interview on Radju Malta today, Muscat said that instead of raising taxes, the Individual Investor Scheme would reap an estimated €1 billion from the sale of citizenship, 70% of which will be channeled to a National Economic and Development Fund.

Muscat was asked by presenter Andrew Azzopardi whether Malta was appearing as being "in desperate need of money", to which the prime minister said that with the same argument, "the previous government would not have worked as much for funds from the European Union, as that could also have been interpreted as Malta being in dire straits.

"They (the PN) did the right thing to lobby for funds when they were in government, and we are doing the right thing now," he said.

Muscat said that Malta was internationally considered an economically-advanced country, and that the citizenship scheme would not change that perception.

The prime minister also disagreed with the assertion that the national sentiment seemed to be against the IIP. "This may have to be explained better, but I don't agree that the Maltese people are seen as not wanting it."

Muscat also criticised the Nationalist Party's effort to discredit the IIP in the European Parliament. "The Opposition's stance is one of panic as it realised that this was a good investment for Malta," he said.

Referring to the Nationalist MEPs' stance in the European Parliament, the prime minister attacked the Opposition for "tarnishing Malta's name outside of its borders... this infighting should be fought out in Malta and not in front of the European Parliament."

Muscat said the EP's resolution was non-binding and that Malta was sovereign to implement such schemes without the approval of the European Parliament.

When probed as to why the Labour Party had not mentioned the IIP in its electoral manifesto, Muscat replied that the government was simply moving with the times. "The mistake this government made was that it did not market the scheme appropriately."

Judges' impeachment

Asked what stand he took to the motion of impeachment against Magistrate Peralta, the prime minister said that due to the fact that the investigation was still ongoing, he would prefer not to comment so as not to prejudice the investigation.

He did say, however, that the motion of impeachment against Farrugia Sacco was something that the government was still pursuing.

Poverty and healthcare

Muscat spoke of a "very real and worrying" picture of poverty in Malta, saying that many people were working for low salaries and pensioners were living in poverty.

"5,000 jobs were created during the last legislature but around half of these were taken up by foreigners, and this is a problem that needs to be tackled from a grassroots level."

Muscat also spoke of Mater Dei's bed shortage, and the need for more beds in homes for the elderly so that social cases are not left inside hospital wards. "A hospital is a place where instant care is given... and if there is a need for more space in homes for the elderly, then we need to address that issue," he said.

He said that it was easy to look at the former St Luke's general hospital as a potential solution, but stressed that re-opening the old hospital would cost millions just to refurbish. "The previous administration knew about this problem but, for what I can only imagine were political reasons, did not address the issue," he said.

When asked if continuing with a system of free healthcare was in any way unsustainable, Muscat said that making people pay for the healthcare they receive would be the "easy was out" for government.

"The issue of waste and a lack of coordination has to be seen to... A lot boils down to money, yes, and a government can easily get that money by increasing taxes, but we certainly do not want to do this," he said.

He said that it was for reasons such as this that the country needed to create means of economic growth, citing the Individual Investor Programme as one example of this.