Bonġu News on 5 July 2022

COLA €17/week without subsidies — PN motion on Valletta night music revoked — Grech: ‘No free vote on IVF requested’

COLA €17/week without subsidies

If the government wasn’t subsidising fuel and basic goods, the Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) would have to increase to €17.

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said that employers would have to pay €16 to €18 a week more per employee.

Subsidies are ultimately cheaper for the government, Caruana said in Parliament on Monday.

He said the government’s current course of action was better than reviving a dead economy at a later stage.

The PN’s motion to revoke extended hours for playing music in Valletta has been rejected by the Labour Party.

Labour MPs did not uphold the motion and are set to vote against it on Wednesday.

The Nationalist Party says the new law undermines the capital’s unique attractiveness and would turn it into another Paceville.

Bernard Grech said that none of the Nationalist MPs requested a free vote on the IVF law amendments during internal discussions.

The Opposition leader told the Times of Malta that he never said ‘no’ to a free vote, but the issue was never raised.

This comes after several Nationalist MPs including former PN leader Adrian Delia have called for a free vote in recent days.

The amendments on the IVF law will see genetic testing on embryos for certain conditions introduced in Malta.

The ‘free vote’ discussion is yet another episode of a Nationalist Party struggling on its way to credible opposition.

Why raising the issue of a free vote only at the eleventh hour and, coincidentally, after ten hours of internal discussion?

A turning point deliberately set at this point in the storyline has to be seen as another attack on the party’s leadership.

Adrian Delia, who once pledged to give Bernard Grech the support and loyalty he didn’t receive, could at least have explained himself.

All we found yesterday was some Facebook poetry.

Sunny and hot at a high of 37°C that feels like 39°C.