Prime Minister Joseph Muscat this morning invited Opposition leader Simon Busuttil to withdraw his reservations to the Constitutional Convention for this to start meeting immediately to amend the Constitution.
Addressing supporters at Mqabba, Dr Muscat referred to the document launched by the Nationalist Party today to guide the next Nationalist government.
Dr Muscat said that many of the proposals being made related to the Constitution so the Opposition leader should withdraw his reservation to convention coordinator, former Nationalist MP Franco Debono, and discussions would start “as from tomorrow”.
Dr Muscat said:
“This is an open invitation which I will not tarnish with politics. When Dr Busuttil wants we will start working to change our Constitution.”
Dr Muscat also called on Dr Busuttil to ask his MPs who had not yet returned the €500 increase a week they had been given during the last administration to return this money.
Together they owned the state €1 million. For Dr Busuttil to be credible and be taken seriously, he should turn on his shadow ministers and ask them to return this money, Dr Muscat said.
The Prime Minister also promised a law that would guide the appointment of all chairmen on public authorities and not just that of the Planning Authority. He noted that a government had five years during which to implement its promises and his government would implement all of them.
He was referring to an amendment moved by independent MP Marlene Farrugia in Parliament during the debate on the Environment Authority for Parliament to be allowed to scrutinise the nominee to serve as chairman in line with electoral pledges.
The Prime Minister also said that a law that would acknowledge autism as a condition would be enacted.
Earlier the Prime Minister spoke about the country’s success in employment, obtaining record unemployment lows month after month.
He reiterated his promise to provide assistance to all De La Rue employees who would be losing their job as a result of the company’s restructuring and appealed to the management to be clear with workers so that they would know where they stood.
He spoke about tourism and said that many people did not see tourism as a career because of the low pay. He noted that there was a lack of unionisation among hotel workers and said it was better for employers that workers were represented by unions as this regularised a lot of issues.
Dr Muscat hoped that a study on the international exposure gained by Malta during the Valletta Summit and the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting would be published in the coming days.
The Prime Minister also spoke about the employment of people with a disability and said it was not acceptable for employers to find technical excuses to ignore their lawful obligations.
Dr Muscat announced that the World Dragsters Championship next October were to be held in Malta.