[WATCH] Labour lashes out at PN over ‘public service indiscriminate transfers’ proposal

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The pre-budget document presented on Friday by the Opposition was a clear indication that the Nationalist Party was the same party of the 80s and 90s and was even promising to carry out indiscriminate transfers of public service employees should it win the next election, according to health minister Chris Fearne. 

The minister, who was addressing a press conference with Labour MP Silvio Schembri at the Labour Party headquarters on Monday, pointed out that the PN was proposing an independent audit of public sector employees to determine possible redeployment within departments. 

"The PN does not qualify or quantify the proposed transfers or decreases in the number of public sector employees,” he said. “This is simply a throwback to the vindictive transfers that were carried out by the PN after its 1987 election victory."

Fearne said that the PL was also concerned with the PN's insistence on reducing the number of civil servants to counter increases on public spending. 

"Yes, this administration has increased the number of employees in the public sector," he said. "I am proud that this year alone we have employed 116 new doctors and 136 nurses, while a number of midwives will be employed shortly."

Fearne said that the government had, in the three years in power, added 19,500 jobs in the private sector, bringing the number of public sector employees down from 27% to 25% of the national workforce. 

Schembri said the Labour Party had been looking forward to the PN’s budget proposals, but had been very disappointed at the fact that none of the measures proposed were costed and that many of the measures proposed had already been introduced by the present administration.

He said that the PL was also worried about the PN’s proposal to start out-sourcing non-core services to the private sector, without indicating which services it considered non-core.

“Other countries that introduced such measures ended up outsourcing nursing and therapist services,” he said. “Is the PN now suggesting that nurses be employed from within the private sector? What departments is the PN saying should be privatised?”