Do your duty, vote, Gonzi tells university students

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi has urged University students to vote at the general election, saying that was their duty and their privilege, and their future depended on it.

Speaking at the University in a question and answer session with students Dr Gonzi said the government was giving the people a better country where the number of gainfully occupied was at a record high and investment was strong.

He promised that a future PN government would retain the students’ stipends and the current system where higher stipends were given to students following certain careers would continue to be built upon.

It was good news, he said, that the University had now become small, in that this was much better than having a half empty campus.

More young people were continuing to study now, and the government would continue to promote this process by investing heavily in education and in students, he said.

Dr Gozni spoke on the tax cuts the PN is proposing, and said on objective of the next PN would be to create better paying jobs even as workers paid less tax.

Referring to the MLP commitment to renegotiate parts of the EU accession treaty, Dr Gonzi said the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the House of Representatives just before it was dissolved had included Malta’s accession treaty. Labour had voted in favour of ratification, so how could it now want to change the accession package?

Dr Gonzi also spoke briefly on the environment, but gave more time to it in an earlier social activity in Naxxar where he said he would take charge of the reform of Mepa because the changes would require coordination with several ministries.

He also spoke on the government’s environment record, pointing out that 60,000 trees had been planted in three years. Trees were even growing in the rehabilitated former Maghtab dump. A sewage treatment plant had been opened in Gozo and another was being built in Malta.