General conference to decide on MLP's referendum stand - Sant

The Labour Party's mass meeting on Sunday would open the party's campaign that would lead to the MLP's return to government, Alfred Sant said yesterday.

Speaking at the Labour party club in Gzira, Dr Sant said the country had to be "cured from its economic ailments" as otherwise there would be problems in future.

The MLP had worked on a series of plans, drafted with the help of non-Labour leaning experts "who were fed up with the PN government and who were prepared to offer their proposals to the MLP," Dr Sant said.

The new Labour government would create an environment where people could invest so that the country would start to recover and injustices would be rectified, Dr Sant said.

He said the party's administration, executive and parliamentary group had had several meetings and had drawn up the three motions that were to be presented to the general conference shortly.

The motions deal with the partnership option, taxation and small enterprises.

Dr Sant said the partnership policy spoke about the relations with the EU, where the party's policy was the same as that in 1996 but had been updated where necessary.

Speaking about the taxation motion, proposing the retention of VAT, Dr Sant said the advice the party received was that VAT had contributed to the bad economic state of the country but that it should be retained in order not to create more problems. The third motion on small enterprises spoke about the need to allow small business to operate freely, so long as they respected the consumers.

Turning to the EU referendum, Dr Sant said the MLP would not declare what it would be doing before the date of the referendum was announced and that a general conference would decide about what the party should do.

The Nationalist Party said Dr Sant had opposed VAT out of pique and had harmed Malta's economy with its removal.

"Alfred Sant had to admit he had the wrong policies but he is now repeating the same mistake by not accepting EU membership. Dr Sant should have the courage to say what he intends doing rather than keep the people guessing about what he would do in a referendum," the party said.

"Democracy dictates that the results of a referendum should be respected. Alfred Sant should declare he is prepared to let Labourites who are in favour of EU membership to speak in favour of the EU and to vote in favour in the referendum," the PN said.