PM accuses PN of jumping on bandwagons while abdicating political responsibility
Government will protect whistleblowers to weed out corruption
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat yesterday accused the Nationalist Party of jumping on any bandwagon that it can find in order to curry political favour from the electorate, while at the same time abdicating responsibility on serious matters such as the substandard concrete at Mater Dei Hospital.
Speaking during a political activity at the Rialto Theatre in Cospicua, Dr Muscat said that once the Mater Dei inquiry is published, he is convinced that Simon Busuttil will have to eat humble pie and accept responsibility for the substandard structure.
Dr Muscat said that governments are elected to take decisions. “Any politician must be ready to do that, be ready to take decisions each and every day. Decision-making is crucial. If you don’t take decisions, things do not just carry on nicely.”
The Prime Minister said that while unemployment was down and the economy is ticking over nicely, it does not mean that the government can rest on its laurels. “We must continue to strive and work hard to retain the progress we have registered. Life today is like a race and just because you are in the lead, does not mean that you can take a rest, because from being in the lead, you can rapidly lose your place and end up in last position,” he said.
Dr Muscat said that the price of indecision always hurts taxpayers and businesses. “Look at how things were, with the prices that were being paid for utilities and businesses. We have seen the biggest price drop in Europe,” said the Prime Minister.
He also touched on public finances and said that the national debt and the deficit are being reduced every month. “Someone once suggested that we need a bailout, but our finances are in the best position that they have been for the past 15 years, and that is why the government is investing in Malta and Gozo, while the going is good,” said Dr Muscat.
He said that the government’s priorities were education and health. “The situation has improved. Medicines are no longer out of stock and waiting lists have been slashed. But that does not mean that there is not more to do. Orthopaedics is an area that needs improvement and we also have to deal with the fact that we need more hospital beds and that there are structural problems at Mater Dei,” said Dr Muscat.
Traffic
The Prime Minister said that another pressing issue that the government needed to deal with was the state of the roads and the ever-increasing traffic load. “But it is not only about roads. We need new infrastructure and we need new ideas of how we can travel across Malta and Gozo without having to sit in traffic for hours,” he said. Dr Muscat said that this was the price of progress and that the government had a duty to solve it.
Investment
Dr Muscat said that the leader of the previous administration had boasted that the government had secured €1 billion in investment from the European Union over six years. “This was positive. But how much more positive is it that this government managed to secure €1 billion in investment from the private sector in just two years? They accused us of ‘electioneering’, but we can assure you that the in- vestment will not stop, it will continue to flood in,” he said.
Dr Muscat said that investment was flooding in from all quarters. He admonished the PN for trying to derail the IIP citizenship scheme, saying that Malta was a market leader in this respect and that other countries were scrambling to follow our lead. “There are plenty of investment projects. There’s the Intercontinental Hotel, the new hospital at Smart City, the Metropolis project in Gżira, the regeneration of Valletta, the €200 million investment at St Luke’s and Gozo Hospital, the medical school and last but not least, Corinthia’s announcement that they will be building a six-star hotel on the existing site in St Julian’s,” said Dr Muscat.
Marsa power station
He said that the PN had consistently forgotten about the south of Malta, but this government will not. “Look at Marsa, 25 years of broken promises. We closed down the power station and the EU finally closed proceedings against Malta. We know that the people of the south of Malta have been discriminated against and we feel it, we feel your hurt,” said Dr Muscat.
Dr Muscat said that this is why the south was the ideal site for the American University of Malta. “We can compromise and I have already been meeting environmental groups to get a measure of their opinions. We can split the campus but we still want to the development to take place in Marsascala. We will find a compromise for the good of the south of Malta and ultimately, it will be the country as a whole that benefits from this project,” he said.
He reminded people that the previous government had given its blessing to 12,000 permits being issued for Outside Development Zones. “We will not do that; we will limit the granting of such permits to investments that make sense. I am not ready to make declarations that cannot be sustained in the long run. I will not bind myself to not building schools, hospitals or old people’s homes if they are needed due to our growing population,” he said.
“I will commit to saying that ODZ land will only be used as a last resort, but we cannot say that no ODZ land will be used if it is needed,” said Dr Muscat. The Prime Minister said that his government was not hell-bent on allout construction and development. “That is not in our interest, we want development which makes sense and we will amend our policies and plans where they might fall short,” said Dr Muscat.
Gozo whistleblower
Turning to the Gozo whistleblower case, Dr Muscat said that he cannot understand how the Opposition Leader issued a statement while the case was going on live in Court, to then recant what he had said and accuse the person in question of being a liar and a crook.
Dr Muscat said that this was the first time that the Whistleblower’s Act was being put into action, and said that if Simon Busuttil was going to attack anyone who spoke up about corruption and malpractice, the government was pledging to protect them if they are genuine and truthful. “In one fell swoop, Simon Busuttil attacked the Police, the Attorney General and the Law Courts,” said the PM.
He also said that Dr Busuttil was attacking the integrity of Judge Philip Sciberras, who is heading the Mater Dei inquiry. “As soon as we have the findings, we will publish them,” he said. Dr Muscat said that at present the bill to correct the substandard structures at Mater Dei was likely to be at least €35m.
“There is still a lot to come out, especially about the waiver document. John Dalli, who was Health Minister at the time, said that he has proof that he was not informed of the deal until six weeks after it had been signed. Former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, meanwhile, said that it never made it to Cabinet and it would never have been approved. We will find the spider in the end; we will find out who was responsible,” said Dr Muscat.
He questioned the CEO of the PN, who was supposedly the one who signed the document. “Maybe he tore up some other papers, and maybe we have photos of him doing so,” the Prime Minister said enigmatically.
He said that once the inquiry report is out, he will call on Simon Busuttil to assume political responsibility.