Abuse will not be tolerated, PM insists

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said he would not tolerate any abuse and anybody involved in the VAT fraud scandal would suffer the consequences.

"If the investigations unearthed evidence of abuse, all those involved would be taken to court, independently of who they are," he said.

Dr Gonzi condemned all abuse and said he expected the Labour Party (PL) to back the government on this case.

However, he avoided saying who should shoulder political responsibility for the whole affair.

Dr Gonzi was addressing a press conference under a tent erected in the car park of the Lufthansa Technik hangar in Luqa as part of the PN's electoral campaign.

The theme chosen for the third week of the MEPs election campaign was job creation.

In the face of fresh statistics showing a yearly increase of over 1,000 unemployed people in April, Dr Gonzi remained confident that the economy was still capable of creating jobs.

He insisted that the same statistics showed how the latest unemployment rate for November, which stood at 4.3 per cent, was lower than that for the previous year despite the international recession. Dr Gonzi acknowledged though that, after November, unemployment rose, partially because of the early retirement scheme at Malta Shipyards. He said the government had stepped in to safeguard 2,000 jobs in manufacturing industries whose markets were affected by the recession. The economy had also generated 7,000 jobs last year, which made up for the losses suffered in some sectors. He pointed out that Lufthansa Technik had just engaged 20 former dockyard workers.

Dr Gonzi boasted of his party's track record insisting that it believed in rolling back the frontiers of the state to allow space for the private sector to flourish. "No other government can boast of the same job creation record as each and every PN government," Dr Gonzi said drawing a distinction between the PN and the PL.

The PN agreed with extending maternity leave to 20 weeks from the current 14 as long as there was a level playing field among the EU member states. The issue was raised in the European Parliament earlier this month, when the European People's Party, of which the PN forms part, voted against.

Dr Gonzi said that while Malta had one of the shortest periods of maternity leave, at 14 weeks, mothers were paid their full wage. In other countries, despite having more maternity leave, employees were compensated at the average wage, he said.

He said 93 companies had applied for a recently-launched scheme to engage workers from disadvantaged categories, with the ETC partly meeting the salary bill. These applications involved a government commitment of €6 million.

Dr Gonzi urged the people to vote on June 6, saying that MEPs would be involved in decisions that affected everyone and covering issues ranging from the amount of overtime workers could work to abortion, to financial assistance for investment in the energy sector.

Meanwhile, employment figures were contested by Labour MEP candidate Edward Scicluna during a meeting with GWU officials. He insisted that when one factored out the seasonal change in employment, in the last three months of last year there were almost 1,600 jobs less than the previous three months. "The trend is towards job losses not creation," Prof. Scicluna said.