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'Economic plan on track, more people finding work' - Muscat [live blog]
Follow our live-blog of Joseph Muscat's reply to Opposition leader Simon Busuttil's speech here at 6:30pm
25 November 2014, 5:55pm
Miriam Dalli
Miriam Dalli
“While helping the victim, we will fight the drug barons. And those who end up in prison, and where the courts orders the confiscation of assets, this confiscation doesn’t take place. Mostly, because court officials are afraid to do it.” The government will launch an international expression of interest for the setting up of an Asset Management Bureau to effectively implement asset confiscation.
“I want to know what Simon Busuttil thinks of our plans. I know there are people who ask ‘why should we pay for persons with disability to work’. And I thought that we would find consensus in this room on our measures. I am convinced we could have bipartisan consensus.”
The government will be enforcing a 1967 law where a 2% quota has to be met in the employment of persons with disability. Companies who refuse to employ a person with disability will be asked to pay a fine. Income from these fines will be deposited in a fund for use by the government to help persons with disability.
Muscat says a white paper launched on the opening of school hours, Muscat says change will only take place after wide consultation and after being fully convinced that such a change would be needed.
Muscat says the price of fuel was reduced twice under the Labour government.
Talking on the environment, Muscat says it was “shameful” how ODZ plants were “designed as a jigsaw puzzle” with lines starting on one side and finishing on another without a guideline. “When we ask MEPA who designed them they all bow their head,” he says, after earlier having called PN MP George Pullicino ‘Judas’.
“Shall we tell them that your fuel and car are paid by the government? I went for the cheapest choice, saving taxpayers money. I pay my own insurance and the services my car needs. On the other hand, Mr leader of the Opposition, your insurance is paid by the people.”
“Do you really think that I am happy with what happened? Do you really think that? I am disgusted. This inquiry will be a way to make things better. Manuel Mallia is making an important job to rid the prisons of drugs. What I know is that he receives threats but we don’t air it. Shall we remove escorts? Shall we remove the armed escort with your friend Richard Cachia Caruana or former presidents?”
Muscat tells Busuttil that he “abused of his parliamentary privilege” to repeat “lies” against Ministers Anton Refalo and Owen Bonnici. “They were lies pushed by your media and which they retracted on your own newspaper,” Muscat said, with Busuttil shaking his head saying no.
Replying to criticism of nepotism, Muscat asks Busuttil whether they should talk about “Busuttil’s friend” who was employed at Dar Malta – Malta’s representation in Brussels – on the eve of the election. “And we kept him there while you talk about nepotism. If there existed meritocracy in your party, you would not be the leader of the Nationalist Party today.”
The PM announces a pilot project will be launched in two localities to deliver medicines to elderly at their residences.
Muscat says the government will not be allowing abuse of benefits, simply because a person did not want to work and not because of a genuine reason.
Lambasting Busuttil for quoting “high” poverty statistics which referred to the period under the PN administration, Muscat said the government was addressing the most vulnerable, with the main key being education, “the key to social mobility”.
Referring to the €1,000 aid per child to be given to vulnerable families, Muscat says that families have to ensure that their children go to school. He says that the government had once again increased stipends, despite much criticism by the PN that a Labour government would cut stipends.
“I am convinced you weren’t the one to come out with these calculations, and I suggest you give him the pay off,” Muscat told Busuttil, reminding him that the number of people retiring from work this year were 600 after the age of retirement is now at 62.
Turning to the cameras transmitting his speech live on television, Muscat addresses bus drivers who were employed with Arriva telling them, that if it were to Busuttil, they should “have ended without a job”. “750 workers of those employed with the government are former Arriva bus drivers, numbers which will be removed from the list as soon as the new bus operator takes over.”
He adds that the government had employed 400 workers without qualifications in 19 months while the PN administration, during its last 19 months, had employed 787.
Muscat says that contrary to what the PN leader had forecasted, Malta never required a bailout. “Reality is that, today, the country is faring better. Truth is that, Busuttil with his plans, he would have created less economic growth than we are. During the electoral campaign, he had projected a 2.8% economic growth under the PN government. We, however, have registered a 3.5% growth.
Muscat says that the PN administration had missed the deficit projections one after the other, while his government had always met its targets.
Muscat says the people expected a budget that awarded hard work, that fought against abuse. He says the people have a clear choice between the positive and negative attitudes. “We won’t say that all that our predecessors was wrong. And yes, they want to depict us devils. But without arrogance, we are here to see an improved country.”
In reply to a series of questions by Zammit Dimech, during which Mallia hailed him “a seasoned politician”, Mallia says that his credibility is bound to his actions and an independent inquiry has now been appointed.
“When I discovered that parts of that statement had been incorrect, I called a press conference to correct it. I left the event at 11.30pm, and yes, I was shocked. But I was not involved in any cover-up. Don’t you think that, as a minister, I’m shocked at what happened? I spent my life fighting against certain things and do you think that, today, as a minister for home affairs, I want see things to return to the 80s…the same years I fought against? I’m sorry that you want to give the impression that I tried to cover up this incident. I understand that you want my head on a plate, because I’m no longer a Nationalist. If I did anything wrong, I would have gone voluntarily to the Prime Minister. I entered politics recently, after I built my professional career and then saw things [by the PN government] which I was not liking.”
Amid much booing and shouts and after Zammit Dimech says the PN “don’t want Mallia’s head on a plate”, Mallia, jokingly, invites Zammit Dimech to be his defence lawyer during the independent inquiry. Needless to say, Zammit Dimech politely refuses.
Tonight Prime Minister Joseph Muscat will be delivering his address in parliament, as part of the presentation of Budget 2015 to parliament. Opposition leader Simon Busuttil made his intervention yesterday evening.
It’s question time and Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia takes the floor. Jason Azzopardi, following a question on the Marsascala mobile police station, makes a supplementary question and turns the attention on Wednesday’s shooting incident.
Azzopardi asks whether a question he had tabled months ago on lack of training for police officers, to which Mallia had replied that Azzopardi was being “negative” and “childish”. Azzopardi had asked Mallia whether he would be ready to shoulder political responsibility if, due to lack of training, a police officer was to accidentally hit a person through the use of a firearm.
Mallia replies that, as a minister, he is not responsible of which police officers are given a weapon. “When a weapon is given to an officer, I imagine that such officer would be well-trained is using a weapon,” he says, adding that president emeritus Eddie Fenech Adami has an armed escort. “If this escort were to make a mistake, it surely shouldn’t be shouldered by the former president.”
Subsequently, Azzopardi asks at what time had he been informed of Wednesday’s shooting incident, involving Mallia’s driver and police constable Paul Sheehan. Mallia replies that there is an internal inquiry going on and that, during the shooting incident, he and his wife were at a reception organised at the Floriana police headquarters.
To a subsequent question raised by Labour MP Anthony Agius Decelis, who asked how many times police officers made use of a firearm, Mallia replied that he didn’t have such information and that the information requested had nothing to do with the original question on the mobile police station.
In reply to a question raised by PN MP Francis Zammit, Mallia confirms that Acting Police Commissioner Ray Zammit was present for the event but he [the minister] was not involved in an order issue to load the Scotsman’s car on a police low-loader.
Mallia also says that he was not involved in the statement issued by his ministry on Wednesday night: “I wasn’t consulted or informed of the details of that statement. But I didn’t write it, nor did I read it.”
Zammit Dimech then asks how Ray Zammit had not kept him informed of the details, such as that shots fired were not warning shots. “The first information I received that my ministerial car had been shot at. Zammit, at that point, went out to verify facts. What I can say is that I never went up to Zammit’s office. Dr Zammit Dimech, you won’t be the one to rob me off my dignity. I had nothing to do with that statement and with a decision to load the car. Don’t attack my integrity just to score political points. What I’m saying is the truth and don’t attack my integrity,” an impassioned Mallia said.