The Budget should address the industry competitiveness problem better, the Nationalist Party said.

Addressing a news conference this afternoon, deputy leader Mario de Marco said the government’s plan to keep petrol and diesel expensive supposedly to solve the traffic problem was placing industry at a disadvantage.

Moreover, the people were having to pay for the government’s inefficiency.

Dr de Marco spoke about the importance that recurrent expenditure was kept sustainable and noted that this would have increased by 22 per cent in three years. Debt would have risen by €600 million.

Part of this was due to the increase in the number of public sector employees, he said.

Spokesman Robert Arrigo said that the country had slowed down in manufacturing and exports to the detriment of the economy. It was also time for the government to give cooperatives the importance they deserved.

Spokeswoman Kristy Debono said that the government was taking a position against the middle class in the way tax bands were being calculated. Rather than creating incentives for hard workers, some people who would be getting a wage rise would end up with less cash in their pockets.