Visa and expatriate affairs would be elevated to government agency status in an attempt to expedite bureaucratic procedures faced by foreign investors, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said yesterday.
The heightened priority will go hand-in-hand with a renewed permanent residency scheme that will be launched by the end of May and the appointment of a Bureaucracy Commissioner who will be tasked with cutting unnecessary red tape.
Delivering the closing speech at the Labour Party’s annual general conference, Dr Muscat told a sympathetic audience that his aim was to use this legislature’s 60-month term to kick-start the country’s “greatest economic cycle since Independence”.
Having set that ambitious target, the Prime Minister – and freshly confirmed PL leader – railed against the paperwork shackles many investors faced.
“How is it possible that a foreign entrepreneur willing to invest millions of euros is forced to queue up in the sun to obtain an ID card?” he asked, as he spoke of investors who had been waiting for months to obtain the necessary work permits and visas.
“They were fobbed off with bureaucratic excuses that just make no sense. We need to go with the times; this is a business-friendly government,” he said.
Ministers and parliamentary secretaries would be holding public meetings throughout June, Dr Muscat said. The meetings, likely to take place every six months, would ensure ministers did not “lock themselves in ivory towers, comforted by power”.
Calls for expressions of interest for several projects – from casinos to a Gozitan cruise liner terminal to land reclamation – would be issued in the coming weeks, including one for the use of what was until a few years ago Malta’s shipbuilding yard.
Dr Muscat said he could not understand much of the criticism the Government had received for having appointed PL acolytes to some key positions. “Does being a Labourite mean you cannot contribute?” he wondered.
The Government had also appointed people with political backgrounds tinged blue or green, he argued.
“Just as I proudly defended their appointments, I will proudly defend those of people linked to the Labour Party. We need to enter a post-partisan age and leave grudges behind us.”
Cabinet members’ lack of hesitation when agreeing to grant transsexual Joanne Cassar her identity rights was evidence the Government’s “heart was in the right place” when it came to civil rights, the Prime Minister said. He warned employers in the security, cleaning and care worker sectors that precarious employment conditions would not be tolerated by the Government.
“We’re watching and taking note,” he said.
It’s time to govern
The Labour Party had to start thinking like a Government and shake off the vestiges of 25 years in Opposition, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told party delegates yesterday.
Describing the shift as the party’s first major post-electoral challenge, Dr Muscat urged party colleagues to make the mental leap.
“Some may be finding government less comfortable than being in Opposition,” he said, “but not me. And you shouldn’t miss it either. We have a lot of governing to do.”
Dr Muscat reminded delegates of how, five years ago, he had spoken of a 15-year plan. “The first five-year phase is now complete,” he said. “Now it’s time for phase two.”
He urged party colleagues to not shy away from the responsibility that governance brought with it and to also remember that last March’s electoral win was bigger than any single political party.
“No political party could have achieved that result,” he said. “The election was won by a movement and we must govern as one.”
He thanked Foreign Affairs Minister George Vella for having urged him into politics, paid tribute to former Prime Ministers George Borg Olivier, Eddie Fenech Adami and Dom Mintoff and had a special word of thanks for his predecessor, Alfred Sant.
“I never found the slightest slither of interference or opposition from him. Instead, he gave me his absolute loyalty and I thank him for this.”