Updated | PN deputy leaders rubbish Muscat’s claims of internal conflict within party

PN deputy leaders Mario de Marco and Beppe Fenech Adami have strongly dismissed the Prime Minister’s claims of internal conflict within the Opposition’s leadership.

In a joint statement, the deputy leaders said that Joseph Muscat’s claims of a rift were a “figment of his imagination”.

“Muscat hasn’t yet released that he has managed to unite everybody in the country against him,” the deputy leaders said. “Everybody is united against Muscat’s environmental policies, the manner in which he lets scandals slide, and the way he has ignored problems like healthcare, security and traffic that affect the everyday Maltese family.”

In an brief interview on ONE, Muscat claimed that internal conflict is rife within the Opposition, between the “destructive” style of PN leader Simon Busuttil and deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami and the more “proactive” style of fellow deputy leader Mario de Marco.

He said that de Marco’s contribution to a new residency and visa programme intended to attract global investors to Malta contrasted sharply with Fenech Adami's reaction that it was not enough to fight "institutionalised corruption".

“De Marco is trying to be proactive, while Fenech Adami and Busuttil are clearly trying to work destructively, claiming that corruption is rife within the government when we want to tackle it,” Muscat said. “I won’t get into the internal politics of the Opposition, but it is clear that it exists and it seems as though the faction of negativity is winning.”

However, in their joint statement, the PN deputy leaders insisted that the party was not against the new residence scheme, only that it didn’t consider it a sufficient counter-measure to “institutionalised corruption”.

Muscat takes jibe at Opposition’s ‘maths and geography’

In his interview, Muscat lambasted the Opposition for claiming on Friday that power tariff cuts were not reflecting the drastic reduction in the market price of Brent crude oil – to $40 per barrel.

There statement, he said, was completely wrong as oil had spiked to $49 between Monday and Friday.

He also quipped that the Opposition have problems with geography, after their newspaper Il-Mument wrongly reported last week that transport minister Joe Mizzi was set to travel to North Korea, when he was actually due to travel to South Korea.     

Deal reached on free movement of teachers

Muscat said that the government has struck a deal with the Malta Union of Teachers that would allow the free movement of teachers between state and church schools. Such an agreement would safeguard teachers’ salary progression if they decide to change employers, rather than having to start from scratch.