The Ministry for Gozo in a statement on Friday, said that in the Performance Audit Report [1] on care for the elderly in Gozo, the Auditor General had concluded that “in general, there is no doubt that the public money spent from the Ministry for Gozo had contributed in a positive way for the elderly who are living in the community or in a residential home.”
The Ministry statement said that “AG went on to say that this means that the Ministry for Gozo has laid the foundations to expand and improve the quality of community and residential services for the population that is getting older, both to widen the scope of services and to improve their quality.”
The PN said on Friday [2] that “the Government must take responsibility for the report,” calling for explanations over “phantom home help services and the €1 million spent to date on a home for the elderly that has been promised since 2013 and that is still not completed.”
The PN called it a “rampant abuse of the people’s money to the detriment of the elderly themselves who make use of these services or who need these services.”
The Gozo Ministry in its response, said that the PN is criticising “a small part of the Home Help service that is being provided by Inspire, an NGO that does a lot of good with disabled people as well as the service in the same operation as Home Help.”
“If the Opposition finds that this part of the Home Help service is bad, it means that it is pointing the finger at itself, because this service was introduced by the Nationalist Government in 2001.
“While the present government did not feel that it should stop this service, the Ministry for Gozo is committed to continue improving the operation of the responsible department,” it said.
File photo: Gozo News/Alain Salvary