Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi this morning insisted that the country’s success depended on how much it could continue to create jobs.

Should jobs stop being created, as was happening in neighbouring states, the whole system would collapse, he said.

Dr Gonzi was being interviewed on Radio 101.

He said that while the unemployment rate in Cyprus was 14.7 per cent, Malta had the biggest percentage of university graduates. These were facts, he insisted as he reiterated his claim that 20,000 jobs had been created in this legislature.

Dr Gonzi said that through its electoral programme, the government was taking several measures to encourage the creation of jobs and increase the number of self employed. One such measure was the night electricity tariffs.

The Nationalist government had strong finances and managed to reduce taxes because the economy grew.

Labour, on the other hand, wanted to build a power station which the country did not need. This would cost €600 million, even though Labour was claiming it would only cost €300 million, he said.

Dr Gonzi warned that such a power station would also be very dangerous for the south of the island and said that disaster had been created in countries where gas tanks had exploded. Labour’s solution to the creation of electricity, he said, would be disastrous for residents of the south.

The Prime Minister went through a number of measures being proposed in the party’s electoral programme, including that which would enable parents to take sick leave when their children were sick and the opening of a pension account with €1,000 for each newborn.

Even though employers were seeing the sick leave measure as a burden, he said, they should realise that it would also encourage more women not to leave their jobs when they had children. People should also be encouraged to use their sick leave more responsibly.

Asked about a claim by the GWU that Labour’s programme was in line with its own, Dr Gonzi said it seemed the GWU was to be a privileged union of the PL yet again as it seemed to have a copy of the PL’s electoral programme, something no one else had.

This placed serious doubts on the PL’s genuineness especially when not even Labour candidates know what was in the PL’s programme.

The PL, Dr Gonzi said, was playing hide and seek with the people, who deserved much better.

He urged the people to consider well before casting their vote.

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