Independence Day celebrations will cost 75% less after move to Pieta’

The Nationalist Party’s decision to move its annual Independence Day celebrations from the Floriana granaries to the party’s headquarters in Floriana, will be saving it up to 75% of the cost of previous editions.

Addressing a press conference launching this year’s celebrations, PN Secretary General Clyde Puli said that by doing so, the party wouldn’t burden itself with further financial pressure.

Puli said that the country’s national identity was facing more challenges than ever before and that the activities were an important reminder of the need to nurture and protect this identity.  

“Our identity will be lost if we lose our environment, our history, our values,” Puli said. “The economic model of this government is resulting in an environmental disaster: polluted air, exaggerated amounts of rubbish — the construction industry itself is saying it doesn’t know where to dump its waste — the destruction of trees and lack of open spaces,” Puli said.

He added that even the country’s “impeccable” reputation had gone to the dogs and that it was important, on the 55th anniversary of Malta’s independence, to underline where democracy needs to head in the future.

“The PN obtained independence for the entire nation not for the few,” Puli said, contending that the party needed a long-term plan in order to provide an alternative to the nation.

“Together, and with complete openness to dialogue, we understand that we need a long-term strategy to give sustainable direction to our country. The people come first and foremost — it should be an economy for the people and not people for the economy,” he said.

Puli argued that statistics on poverty and what he described as a lack of developments in the social housing sector were testament to the lack of priority the government was giving to social justice.

With this in mind, he said that the party was currently working on its pre-budget document, which would be published in due course.

The PN's Independence Day celebrations - commemorating the day Malta gained independence from Britain on 21 September, 1964 - are generally spread over the period of a few days and traditionally culminate in a mass meeting.

In 2015, the PN moved away from its tradition of using the Granaries as the venue for its celebrations, and instead held them inside Valletta in the environs of the new parliament building.

The decision, taken under Simon Busuttil’s leadership, was at the time met with a negative reaction from grassroot activists, who felt the PN was abandoning its yearly tradition by moving away from Il-Fosos.

The announcement that this year's celebrations will not be organised at the granaries has been met with derision in some closed WhatsApp groups used by PN activists.

The confidence vote showed that almost a third of PN councillors do not trust the leader.