To date, Nationalist governments have always put the welfare of the citizen on top of the political agenda, investing in the well-being of the working force, students and pensioners by introducing long-term policies that reap much more benefits than by simply handing out freebies that, although may seem more popular on the short term, make no economic sense. Huge investments in education, the health system and the infrastructure ensure that citizens get a top quality service that automatically translates into a better standard of living and a better living and working environment.
The citizen is the state's greatest consumer and it is of utmost importance that spending is planned and public funds are channelled in the right direction so as to avoid overspending and wastage. In this way, those who are in real need are ensured the best services and the best care and, while ensuring that services such as primary healthcare remain free of charge, we have to plug the holes to stop abuse, especially in the welfare sector. This should be a battle civil society, the interested partners and the government should fight as a united front.
Abuse deprives those in real need of what is theirs. Abuse means that the social security payments of thousands of honest workers go in the pockets of the few that want to cheat the system and the law must be firm with those who try and benefit illicitly.
Having said that, we need to be careful to identify all sorts of poverty in our country. Sometimes this is not as clear cut as it seems and, unfortunately, some sections of society are excluded just because they do not fall in the mainstream cases. Flexibility is the key to this problem and every case is to be dealt with separately and given its due consideration.
Keeping in mind the social aspect and the premise that nobody should be left behind because of his beliefs, sex and sexual orientation or skin colour, it is important that we give everybody an equal opportunity to work and to succeed in whatever endeavour or activity. One interesting statistic in this regard is the fact that, since 2004, there has been an increase of 12,000 women in the workforce but this is not enough. We must ensure that the conditions are good enough for women to both raise a family and also pursue their desired career. In this regard, tax incentives have already been extended to those women who continued working or started working after childbirth.
Tax incentives have also been introduced for those who send their kids to child centres in order for the mother to go to work. Moreover, more child centres are to be made available to cater for the ever-increasing number of working mums. All this and the restructuring of maternity leave, adoption leave, fostering leave, responsibility and parental leave , reduced hours, teleworking and career breaks all contribute to families having better quality time together and, at the same time, giving the opportunity to females to integrate fully in the labour world.
Without doubt, there are many other things that should and ought to be done to promote equality on the place of work and to offer equal opportunities to the entire workforce.
The main and most important thing, though, is to keep investing in the citizen and provide the necessary drive by means of incentives and programmes that have at their centre the best asset any country can have: its workforce. As Maltese we boast of a working population that can attain very high levels and we must promote this not only locally but even internationally as one of the main advantages that foreign firms will benefit from when investing in our island.
Belief in our people is the key to success. The Nationalist Party and Nationalist Administrations since Independence have always invested heavily in the people and the result is the ongoing success story of today.
Mr Casa is a Nationalist member of the European Parliament.