Labour leader Alfred Sant yesterday called for the resignation of Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg or at least of Parliamentary Secretary Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici over the cleaning contract at the law courts granted to a company "close" to prisoner Mario Camilleri, known as l-imniehru.
Dr Sant said when addressing a dialogue meeting at Marsaxlokk that when Labour MP Josè Herrera lodged a parliamentary question about the subject some days ago, he received a threatening telephone call from Camilleri.
The Labour leader said that this contract had security implications especially since Camilleri had been implicated in a bribery case against two former judges.
Dr Sant asked how Camilleri learnt about the parliamentary question before it had been published.
He also asked how Camilleri could communicate with Dr Herrera and later with Labour MP Anglu Farrugia, whom he also threatened, from prison. Some years ago, Dr Sant said, Camilleri had also threatened MP Gavin Gulia.
When speaking during the budget debate in Parliament last Monday, Dr Farrugia said that it had not been enough for the minister to terminate the contract; seriousness demanded that he should resign.
Earlier, Dr Sant reiterated his promise that a new Labour government would seek to reduce the cost of living, which, even according to a study by economist Joseph Falzon, was the cause of the country's economic problems.
Once the Labour Party was in power, he said, authorities in charge of fair competition would publish a report on the price movements every six months.
The authorities would be obliged to take action when prices were higher than they should be. Priority would be given to food, medicine, educational services, water and electricity.
The Labour leader also insisted that he would reduce the water and electricity surcharge by 40 to 50 per cent.
He said that 20 to 25 per cent of the surcharge currently paid was due to inefficiencies in the electricity production sector. On the other hand, irrespective of what the government said, five per cent VAT was being paid on electricity consumption. VAT and other taxation on fuel products would be capped.
Speaking about the helicopter service between Malta and Gozo, he said that at Lm50 per ticket it could never have been viable, as the opposition had been saying from the very beginning.
The government knew this but it wanted to pave the way for the building of an airstrip in Gozo, which would waste a lot of agricultural land, he charged.