The litany of scandals of sleaze and daylight robberies of public funds by this administration, personified by the royal despot himself, should not numb us to the pain and suffering of the silent majority.
The fog and filthy air being exhaled by this administration should not blind us from the excruciating reality being lived daily in our families and homes.
During visits to hundreds of families throughout this legislature, but especially more so since last June and July, I could glean the outline of the spectre of the rising cost of living, especially in food prices.
It was precisely this experience which, last year, led me to study, research, meet and consult stakeholders, especially local industry and many owners of small and medium enterprises who import or export their goods. I wanted the Nationalist Party to come up with at least one main proposal to help stem the looming rise in the cost of living, of which the PN was aware of its eventual crippling effect during 2022.
Thus, in September, the PN launched the proposal for an annual national fund, starting with €40 million, to help our industry fight the rising cost in transportation. Seeing that the costs involved to get a container full of goods destined to Malta from abroad go up from around €1,500 to almost €17,000 overnight, it was evident, or should have been evident to the royal despot running this country, that the low- and middle-income families would bear the brunt in 2022.
To date, the PN’s proposal has been met with graveyard silence from the government.
You see, the royal despot who was earning thousands of euros every day (yes, every single day) in government consultancies since 2013, mortgaged to him by his master who now wants to escape the hands of justice, couldn’t care less.
Earning €550 every day from the Planning Authority alone, raking in a week what tens of thousands of pensioners do not earn in a year, how can he ever know what it means when a plate of pasta costs over a third more than it did just one month ago, sunflower oil is double the price and a tin of kunserva is up by a quarter?
Do you honestly think he can empathise with you and I when butter, pasta, tinned salad, tea and tinned milk have seen steep price rises, with an average increase of around 17 per cent? And when the price of bread, ricotta, yoghurt, vegetables, cereals and mozzarella, baby wipes, floor wash and detergents have shot up overnight?
He simply does not care about you- Jason Azzopardi
Being a multimillionaire, owning palatial buildings costing millions of euros and several seacraft valued at well over a million euros, can the royal despot understand how food prices have gone up at their fastest rate in at least four years, according to official government statistics? It is the highest annual increase since at least 2017.
Do you expect him to be bothered reading that consumers can expect prices of food and other essential goods to keep climbing until after the summer, as one of Malta’s leading economists forecast last week?
Do you genuinely contemplate a situation where the royal despot sheds a tear for those who are telling me in the silence of their dimly-lit homes that they cannot afford cooking anymore is-soppa tal-armla, which has become the soup of the rich?
You see, it is not only pensioners who are suffering. The number of workers living in poverty has actually increased from five per cent in 2012 to 7.4 per cent in 2020, according to information given to me in parliament by the finance minister. Hence, more income inequality.
Despite promising to look into the working conditions of platform workers in Malta over a year ago, the government has done nothing. The royal despot took the country’s workers for a ride when he pledged to introduce a basic living wage as well as boost workers’ rights in various segments of the economy when he stopped the publication of the report on a potential basic living wage. Last year, he promised to revise the wage-regulation orders that regulate workers’ benefits and wages. To date, zilch.
Last week, in Tarxien, Martin told me why he is angry. While he was being deprived of double pay on Sundays as he is employed by a private contractor at Mater Dei Hospital and still being deprived of basic worker’s rights, the guy running the country was drowning in cash and sleaze.
No wonder the royal despot does not want to stop the scores of millions being paid from public funds every month in corruption in major contracts. No wonder he encourages the employment of more than 400 persons of trust, friends of friends, costing us around €20 million in wages and salaries every year.
He simply does not care about you.