The university project in the south of Malta will take place and will be better than originally proposed, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this evening.

Speaking during the last meeting in the series Gvern li Jisma, Dr Muscat said that part of the project will be in Marsascala and part of it elsewhere in the south.

He said the government was in the final stages of splitting the Malta Environment and Planning Authority into two - environment and planning.

The recent environmental consciousness, against building outside development zone, "pulled the government's ear" and the government had taken the message on board, he said.

Dr Muscat said that while he agreed that it was not right for all the country to be built, he had to keep in mind the interest of the country.

He said he would ensure that building in ODZ areas would always be the last resort but said there were times when it might be necessary, such as for the building of a new hospital, for example.

TRAFFIC, BUS SERVICE

Earlier, Dr Muscat spoke on the traffic problem and said that although this was a major issue, the solution was not immediate. A number of long-term solutions included not carrying out more than one major project at a time. Once the Coast Road project was over the Regional Road flyovers project would be embarked upon.

But improving the infrastructure was not enough and had to be accompanied by an efficient public transport system.

On the bus service he said that yesterday, Malta Public Transport "were not up to it" and he pulled their ears. It was obvious that the rollout of the tallinja bus card would require more manpower.

He was told that there had been 100,000 applications for the card then with another 7,500 applications pouring in in the past two days.

This was no excuse, he said, since in the end the customer was always right. However, he was glad to see that the situation had improved today.

He said he was glad to see that the operator had admitted they had underestimated the number of people who would turn up at once. He added he was sure things would improve.

Dr Muscat said that there would soon be a call for expression of interest for a sea link between Cottonera and Valletta.

It was also time to take decisions on other means of transport such as the option to have a monorail. It was also time to look into whether existing underground tunnels should be opened to cars to have a new underground infrastructure.

As for the Malta-Gozo bridge, the Prime Minister said this was definitely still on the agenda but first he wanted to look into the feasibility of a tunnel linking the two islands.

HOUSING

Dr Muscat said that the government was in the final stages of implementing a process for companies that owed government money but did not have the financial means to pay up.

Some of these companies, however, had property and the government would start taking this as payment or part-payment to continue to ease the housing problem.

MARSA RACE COURSE

On the Marsa race course, he said this was currently only visited by a few people but it was a large area.

Abroad, the races were the place to be and if now that a call for the development of the place had been issued, the country would manage to acquire the right interest this would be transformed from a derelict to a stupendous place which would also be part of the regeneration of Marsa.

GREECE

Commenting about the situation in Greece, Dr Muscat hoped the Greeks would take the best decision which he believed was for them to vote in favour of the package the country has been offered.

A referendum is being held in Greece on Sunday in which the people will decide whether or not to remain in the euro zone.

“There is no easy solution for the Greek situation... We will respect the decision the Greeks will take,” Dr Muscat said adding that banks in Malta were not exposed to the situation in Greece.

MIGRATION

Asked about migration, he said that although tens of thousands of people were migrating from Africa to Europe, the number of people arriving in Malta this year was just 92.

This, he said, was because of a political understanding Malta had reached with Italy - Malta was giving them all the help it could and they understood the country’s limitations. This situation, however, could change overnight, he said.

If it did, Malta could face Europe and ask for assistance as it had shown solidarity in practice and stood up to be counted when it accepted to take 300 of the numbers entering Greece and Italy.

He warned that one should not let the feeling of sadness and anger brought about by the situation translate into racism and xenophobia.

PENSIONS

On pensions, he said that the proposed reform would help both the weak and the hard-working with woman standing mostly to gain.
While it was not perfect, it was the first step and Malta was the only country in Europe speaking about increasing pensions.

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