If the government fails to cut COLA tax in Monday's budget, the budget will be in vain, Nationalist Party Leader Bernard Grech said Sunday.
"We have been calling on the government to stop taxing COLA, and if it doesn't happen in tomorrow's budget, then the budget would be in vain," Grech told a small crowd during an open public dialogue in Cospicua on the eve of the 2025 budget speech.
"Hopefully it is slashed, but it seems that won't happen. The government will continue to rob you of your rightful added cost of living income simply to pocket more taxes.
"If he doesn't do it tomorrow, the PN will do it if elected to government, and we will even give tax credits to employers to help them fork out the COLA to their workers."
Grech was joined by University researcher Dr Amy Zahra and UĦM - Voice of the Workers CEO Josef Vella.
Zahra spoke about the challenges faced by families who have children or other relatives with disabilities and Vella insisted it was time the country valued and invested in manual tradesmanship, among others.
Photo: PNPN would run country like a family
Grech said if elected to government the PN would run the country like a wise family.
Day-to-day family life required parents to make decisions, not out of self-interest, but for the good of their children and their future, he said.
Those decisions were sometimes difficult and required sacrifice, but that was why they were wise decisions.
Whereas the government took unwise and hasty decisions just to cling onto power from one election or budget to another, the PN would lead in the interest of the country.
Photo: PNEverybody knew what the country needed, but the government lacked the political will to implement the solutions, even when they were as simple as planting more trees in public spaces, he added.
"The government not only went in the wrong direction - it has now also lost all sense of direction," Grech said.
A Young Malta
Sunday's public dialogue - dubbed Malta Żagħżugħa (A Young Malta) - was meant to raise the curtain on a series of events that are scheduled for next week as part of the party's general council.
Grech said the PN chose this slogan to remind people that Malta's democracy was relatively young. It has just been 60 years since Independence Day and 50 since Republic Day, he said, which means the country was still a young nation with so many opportunities to grow, mature and move forward.
Photo: PN"But like young people, the country must also have a sense of direction," he said.
"The government lost that. It has no direction in health, education or the environment. Not even in its economic model, which simply aims to add thousands of workers every year."
PN will do things differently, he pledged. A PN government would continue to believe in and push the potential of a young Malta that had a bright future ahead.