The Labour Party has avant-garde ideas on the information technology sector and how the country could attract more companies to invest here, according to party spokesman Michael Farrugia.
However, none of these ideas will be made public yet: Dr Farrugia said they would be announced “at the appropriate time”.
He hinted at a pledge to turn Malta into an IT hub for the Mediterranean and specific measures to help families who do not yet have access to IT in their homes.
During yesterday’s press conference, Dr Farrugia criticised the fact that the Government had not kept its pre-election promise to create 5,600 jobs at SmartCity over five years.
He said this promise had been made to “deceive” voters and “steal” their votes.
“A new Labour government will be collaborating closely with SmartCity investors to attract companies that will invest in Malta with decent salaries for qualified IT graduates,” Dr Farrugia said.
He referred to the party’s recent visit to Dubai to meet Tecom executives, adding that SmartCity officials had told the PL there were no commitments or time-frames of the kind mentioned by the Government.
When it was pointed out to Dr Farrugia that the Tecom investors had actually signed a contract binding themselves to specific targets, which was tabled in Parliament, the MP said the figures were different from the impression given by the Government.
He showed a clip during the press conference in which the Prime Minister says the Government would make good on a pledge to create 6,000 jobs through the 5,600 jobs created by SmartCity and another 400 by Lufthansa Technik. This, Dr Farrugia said, showed clearly that the government was suggesting the 5,600 jobs would be created in this legislature, which was simply not the case.
He also noted that the Government had not even started work on the road between the airport and SmartCity. Dr Farrugia said the Government’s justification for the lack of jobs at SmartCity was its failure to decommission a sewage pumping station on site.
He said it was not true that every person who was graduating in the IT sector was actually finding a job, adding that he knew of many IT graduates who were working as waiters because of lack of jobs.
The Government last night said Labour had not seemed to notice the huge development in the sector, which inculded a national fibre-to-the-home project. It said 98 per cent of students in a survey said they had internet at home.
On SmartCity, the Government said the agreement provided for the gradual creation of 5,600 jobs by seven or eight years’ time, starting at the end of this year.
The developers were about a year ahead of schedule on the construction plan, it added.