Shipyards agreement 'improves prospects for privatisation'

The agreement between the government and the General Workers' Union (GWU) on the shipyards' privatisation will help secure more interest from foreign investors, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.

He hailed the deal as a breakthrough but cautioned that the privatisation "problem" has still not been solved. It just means that an important obstacle in the process has been overcome, he said.

Still, he said that foreign investors, who may have been put off by the ongoing government-union dispute - which revolved around the shipyard workers' early retirement schemes - could now express their interest without having to worry about the tensions, Dr Gonzi said during a party activity at the Rabat Nationalist Party club.

Primarily, the agreement reached on Friday increases the fund made available for the retirement schemes from €49 to €58 million and puts in place more safeguards for the workers who do not opt to join a scheme. Among these, the government has committed itself to trying to negotiate a work guarantee with the yard's prospective buyer for a so far undetermined number of years.

The agreement shows that solutions are possible when people work together in the interest of the nation, the Prime Minister said before making a jibe at the Labour party over its participation in a demonstration organised by the GWU before the mediated talks began three weeks ago.

He avoided making any reference to the organisers themselves, but said that Labour's message to the union and the workers at that "delicate moment" should have been that an agreement would be reached.

Before turning to the subject of education, which was actually the theme of the event, Dr Gonzi kept his focus on the Labour party, saying that he was surprised at the fact that - six months after the general election - Labour Leader Joseph Muscat was still not the official Leader of the Opposition.

He could not understand this "game" at a time when the country was facing various international issues and reforms.

The Malta Independent on Sunday recently reported that Dr Muscat will be resigning from his post in the European Parliament sometime next week, after he completed an EP report on Vat and financial services. His resignation will set the ball rolling for him to set foot in Malta's Parliament, following the resignation of a still unnamed Labour MP, and his eventual appointment as Opposition Leader.

On education, the Prime Minister said it had always been a pillar of his party's politics, pointing out that, over the past seven years, the number of people who moved on to post-secondary education had increased from 30 per cent to 70 per cent.

He underlined the government's investment in setting up Mcast (Malta College of Arts Science and Technology) which, he said, had attracted more and more students each year.

The government would keep investing in education to ensure that there are enough workers trained in the country's growing technical niches. In this connection, in fact, he mentioned the SmartCity project which, he said, had confirmed how investing in education attracted foreign investment.

"Investing in education translates into a better future for our children, better opportunities for our young people and workers and foreign investment that creates quality jobs... Today the country is reaping the benefits of (educational) choices made in the past," he said as he paid tribute to past education ministers especially Louis Galea.

Dr Galea's successor, Education Minister Dolores Cristina, also thanked Dr Galea for the legacy he had left for her with the reform of the education system.

She said her ministry was building on this and faced challenges brought about by the increase in demand for education such as the need for more premises and teachers.