Gozo high on government's agenda, minister says

Minister for Gozo Giovanna Debono told Parliament yesterday that Gozo was high on the Nationalist Government's agenda, and special attention was being given to improving the quality of life of residents, possibly to EU standards.

She was speaking during the debate in reply to the President's address at the state opening of Parliament, reiterating that in its plans for the next five years the government had identified seven sectors for development.

The government had guaranteed that 10 per cent of EU funds would be allocated to initiatives specifically targeted to Gozo. Recent changes would have an impact on the socio-economic development of the island, through economic expansion and the creation of jobs.

The initiatives to continue and increase business incentives in Gozo would help the employment sector. Plans are in the pipeline to create more call centres.

Handcrafts had considerable potential in Gozo. The creation of the Crafts Incubation Centre had helped those who wanted to start up a private business. The increased number of students at Mcast in Gozo, and the Gozo University Centre which gave the opportunity to graduate in Gozo, augured well for the island's future workforce.

The government was also helping financially Gozitan students studying in Malta. The Gozo College was working to put Gozitan students on a par with their Maltese counterparts by offering after-hours tuition.

The education system was being continuously strengthened. A new secondary school for boys would soon be built and a special unit had been set up to support those with special needs.

Improvements were also ongoing in the health sector, including a radiology unit and the building of a second operating theatre. An electronic system of records, compatible with that at the Mater Dei Hospital, was in the pipeline to make all records accessible from Malta.

Through the government's plan, assistance offered to the elderly and persons with disability would be improved. Work on the Adult Training Centre for persons with a disability would also be finalised in the coming months.

In the employment sector, a centre had been set up to offer help to 130 entities and small groups.

Minister Debono said that she would continue to work for improvement in the area of assistance to women with serious family problems. Child care centres would also be set up.

The programme of road improvement and embellishment would continue.

She referred to the tourism sector as "exploding with economic potential", at the same time warning that it was highly vulnerable. It was hoped that Gozo would be able to have a slice of the conference market.

Mrs Debono said that conservation of the national heritage, such as Ġgantija, was imperative. The plan to turn Gozo into an ecological model for sustainable development was both desirable and within reach. The ministry had already started preliminary discussions which centred around alternative energy sources and the filtering of drainage to give a cleaner coastline.

George Vella (MLP) said the opposition expected respect because it represented half the people. It was ready to collaborate so long as its rights were respected. But he noted that there had already been instances of arrogance of power in the first two months after the election.

Only today, he said, a tone of debate had been used in the House that did not bode well for the future. It had been said that even if the party had known more about the Pullicino Orlando case, it would still have lied in order to garner more votes in the election.

Dr Vella augured that the members would behave towards one another as true gentlemen. One of the ways to achieve this would be for the PN to rein in the style of its media.

Turning to the President's speech, Dr Vella said he had already read such words, including in the European Council's recommendations to Malta on various topics in recent years. Whoever had never read such recommendations would hardly realise that Parliament had never had the opportunity to discuss them.

Malta had never had the means to handle these EU decisions as they needed to be.

Labour had been the driving force behind the setting up of House committees, but the volume of work done in these committees at present bore no comparison with what used to be done. The EU itself had suggested to Malta to tap into the European network in order to be better able to cope with the workload.

Dr Vella expressed the hope that the government would not decide to cheat the people out of the good governance they deserved. Parliament needed to be given the opportunity to debate EU affairs that concerned Malta more specifically than others.

David Agius (PN) said it appeared that not everybody had realised that the time of electioneering was over and it was time to get to work. This sentiment seemed to have already been put over by Labour speakers in the current debate, even using the same buzzwords as those of the election campaign.

The best thing to remember was that the Maltese people had a different mentality and were now looking forward to more progress.

It was unfortunate that the opposition had not realised the importance of the fifth highest post in the country, that of Speaker of the House, being occupied by a Labour MP.

If Malta failed to inculcate modern technology in every walk of life it risked being left behind in the tough, competitive world. Malta had made huge leaps forward in several sectors, not least in the employment sector wherein the number of gainfully-occupied persons had increased and unemployment was going down. Even pensioners were now allowed to work on without losing their pensions.

Other important sectors in which Malta had seen progress were in taxation, balance of payments, fisheries and agriculture, balance between family and work, computerisation and health.

Mr Agius said Malta was facing the challenge of illegal immigration with a balanced policy of mercy and firmness. The government was planning legislation on a large number of other important sectors which bode well for the country's future.

Roderick Galdes (MLP) said the government had not changed at all. The election had not given the PN the absolute majority it was accustomed to and it was therefore imperative that it listen to the people. Yet the Nationalist Party insisted on moving forward with its customary arrogance.

The government had made many empty promises, such as investigating cases of corruption, including any environmental issues, and choosing members of boards of government-controlled entities more transparently and democratically. But there had been no visible changes.

The President's speech contained a number of proposals that had already been presented in past budgets.

The Partnership for Peace programme, he said, was another case where the Government had tried to hoodwink the people and then expected the opposition to remain tight-lipped about it. It was about time that the government began treating the opposition with the respect it deserved.

Mr Chris Agius (MLP) also referred to the Partnership for Peace issue, saying that nowhere in its electoral manifesto had the PN raised the issue and neither had the opposition been informed, let alone consulted.

The PN had promised peace of mind. But, as already pointed out last Saturday in the President's speech, the situation of some industries was precarious.

He said that although no names were mentioned it was apparent that the company in question was ST Microelectronics, which employed over 2,200 workers whose livelihood was at stake.

There was indeed room for improvement in the employment sector, especially in cases of underpaid workers and the employment of part-timers, mainly as cleaners and security officers.

Mr Agius pointed out that the dockyards had extremely skilled workers, yet their lot was under threat as government subsidies would stop at the end of this year. He appealed to the government to give the Maltese Dockyard the necessary tools.

Both in government and in opposition the MLP had always believed in the manufacturing sector even if, over the years, the sector had changed drastically. The added value of the work was now higher and, he said, it was important to have a trained workforce. The rebuilding of Ta' Qali crafts village had been promised back in 1987 but no progress had been registered until last year. Labour governments had prepared plans which were scrapped by the Nationalists in 1987. Tenders had been issued last year, but still nothing had happened.

Mr Agius pointed out that Smartcity presented Malta with a challenge in providing the necessary qualified workforce. It was a step in the right direction for the government to create incentives for students to follow IT-related courses.

The Lisbon Strategy, he said, had pointed out that Malta needed to increase its competitiveness, as it had lost 14 places, from the 51st to the 65th, in the competitiveness table.

Concluding, Mr Agius asked the people of Cospicua not to raise their hopes that the Number One Dock would be developed, even if so much had been said by the PN before the election.

Edwin Vassallo (PN) said the recent general elections had yielded signs that had not been seen for several years, especially through people staying away from voting for either of the big parties. It showed that the receiver, the voter, was not fully tapping into the message that politicians were trying to send.

Parliament's biggest challenge involved more than simply passing legislation: it also involved measuring the country's good by using the voters' ruler. It was true that no MP could be everything to everybody, but they had to explain the reasons for every decision taken in the House.

MPs should change their attitude. The country could not afford to have a bigger number of non-voters in the next general elections. It was time to forget electioneering and seek to render back to the electorate the true value of its vote.

The people were becoming more mature, and Parliament needed to respond to the people in a more mature manner. Speeches could well be made on working together for the common good, but the time of concentrating on the common good was giving way to individual selfishness. The common good must be the common factor.

Working together did not mean all MPs rising together to say yes to everything. The airing of different ways of thinking should continue, appropriately for the common good.

The reason for the people's lack of interest in Parliament could be individual selfishness, but this could well give rise to new national problems. The country should learn from the past, but not live on in the past. Mr Vassallo said that if the EU member states were based on Christian principles, the dropping of such a statement from the EU Lisbon Treaty had been a step in the wrong direction. The family and responsibilities therein should continue to be a focal point of the EU. Parliament should send the Maltese family an important message that freedom did not mean a licence for excessive freedom.

The greatest earthquake that could face Malta was not an economic one but one of social values and the notion that "today is now".

Helena Dalli (MLP) said she was getting the notion that the Prime Minister put on a brave face on the national situation in Parliament but then spoke quite differently outside, such as at the PN general council and on a television programme on Tuesday night. This could be confusing to the local observer.

It was useless for the Prime Minister to say that Dr Louis Galea would probably spend only a short time as Speaker of the House until agreement was reached on pairing between the two parties. He should know that while the status quo prevailed, there would be no such agreement forthcoming because his offer was aimed at cheating Labour out of a parliamentary vote.

The Prime Minister had said in his victory speech that the result of the elections was a victory for all of Malta, but the PN's very important electoral promise to appoint board chairmen only after calls for applications, had already been broken a number of times.

Mrs Dalli said she would have expected the President's speech to make meaningful mention of the situation at the shipyards and the national broadcasting station. Job insecurity did not do workers any good. The Prime Minister was making a lot of fuss about offering the hand of friendship, but then appointing well-known Nationalists to head important boards.

Why had women's participation in the labour market not really made any big strides forward? It was not enough to speak about child-care centres if the rest of the situation was 20 years outdated. The national breast-screening programme for women had been mooted in the Budget but had remained just that: a holding out of a promise. Michael Farrugia (MLP) said the waiting lists at Mater Dei Hospital were continuing to increase, if anything, while the brain drain continued. There was a lack of at least 300 nurses. Harking back to when Labour was criticised because it had had to import foreign doctors, Dr Farrugia said the position was now one of needing to import foreign nurses.

There were not enough doctors to go around, so how could the government hope to enhance primary health care when such a project depended so heavily on the availability of doctors?

One would have expected the President's speech to mention the updating of nurses' stipends in order to lure more people to the sector. The national breast screening programme had not even been mentioned in the President's speech.

Efforts to have Maltese doctors specialise in Malta were nothing new: the first instances dated back at least 20 years. The Nationalist government had let the momentum die down and was only now starting to move on it again. Nobody could plead that this was a new government.

The House will meet again on Monday.