Prime Minister Joseph Muscat on Sunday refuted Opposition claims that Malta’s economic growth was being driven by population increases.

Addressing a political activity in Gżira, Dr Muscat said the PN was clearly cut off from reality as economic growth was driven by work, investment, incentives and people’s trust. 

The government learnt from its mistakes, as the trust given to it by the people could easily be taken away and no amount of scaremongering could take this trust away, he continued.

He said the government was in touch with people and understood their realities.

People had one simple question to ask, were they living better lives than they were six years ago, he said.

Dr Muscat said the answer to that question was the biggest indicator that people were enjoying Malta’s successes.

The Prime Minister said everyone had benefitted from the government’s latest Budget  and there was not a single person who had a cent taken away from them.

Dr Muscat said the only criticism levelled against the government was that it could have given more.

“We accept this criticism positively, because this was just the second Budget of the second legislature [of this government]. Look how much more is left to give back”, Dr Muscat said.

He said the government’s plan had broken away from the shackles of election Budgets, where things used to be given away on election eve, only to be taken back once the election was over.

Dr Muscat said the government had wiped out years of debts accumulated by previous PN governments.

Money that should have been given to pensioners was instead funnelled by previous governments towards servicing the country’s debts, he said.

He said that hardly anyone spoke about unemployment anymore and the criticism was now that there were not enough skilled workers to keep up with demand.

Unemployment and high energy bills used to be the biggest issues prior to 2013, the Prime Minister continued.

He said the government had introduced a mechanism whereby those who spent a year on the minimum wage would qualify for an automatic increase.

Dr Muscat acknowledged that more had to be done to fight poverty.

The Prime Minister declared the government would not say poverty was a perception, or that those on low wages were not suffering.

The government, he said, had introduced a variety of schemes to help all types of property buyers.