During his customary Sunday morning address yesterday, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi focused in particular on a number of the government’s achievements and projects, and only spoke about hot issues such as the Air Malta restructuring process and the honoraria towards the end of his speech, when he hit out at Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat and the PL.

Noting that good news rarely seemed to be given much importance by the media, Dr Gonzi mentioned the considerable increase in the number of young people who continue studying, economic growth, job creation and a number of projects such as the recent Bisazza Street project.

Talking about the PL’s honoraria motion, he said it was a “hypocritical pantomime”, and he referred to a change he had implemented with respect to MPs who happen to be government employees.

This change had been beneficial to a number of MPs, including Labour MPs, one of whom had an increase in his earnings of more than €1,000 a week.

On the Air Malta issue, the prime minister said Dr Muscat is acting in a superficial manner by trying to confuse people at such a delicate time for the national airline.

Dr Gonzi explained that Selmun Palace Hotel had to be sold to rescue Air Malta and make it competitive.

Referring to the 58 Selmun Palace Hotel employees who had lost their job, he said he had given instructions to the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC) to help these people rejoin the workforce as soon as possible.

“The way Dr Muscat is trying to make people forget about the global recession of three years ago and its negative effects on many large airlines is scandalous. We will continue doing our utmost to see Air Malta emerge stronger than it is.”

Going on to talk about the honoraria issue, Dr Gonzi accused the PL of tackling the matter with a sense of “gross hypocrisy”, and he referred to MPs financial package in the past legislature.

He explained that government employees used to have to leave their job if they were elected to parliament. This was unacceptable and a decision was taken to change this rule, allowing MPs to keep their job in the public service said Dr Gonzi, adding that a number of MPs benefited from this change.

Labour MPs Roderick Galdes, Silvio Parnis and Anthony Zammit who had benefited from an additional €566, €270 and €1,137 every week, respectively, he said.

As mentioned earlier, the prime minister also spoke about a number of projects undertaken by the government, saying that the aim was to give families a number of open spaces.

These include Bisazza Street in Sliema, which has been converted into a pedestrian zone, Ġnien George Bonello Dupuis and Pjazza Sant’ Anna, also in Sliema, Pjazza San Ġorġ and Merchants Street in Valletta. Dr Gonzi also mentioned significant investment in the southern part of the island, including the Dock No. 1 project in Cottonera.

Dr Gonzi expressed satisfaction at the recently announced statistics which show that the number of young people who continue studying after they complete secondary schooling has increased to 75%; this percentage was just 25% a few years ago.

He also expressed satisfaction that until last September, more than 10,000 people had attended evening courses with respect to 500 programmes covering 150 different subjects.

Lastly, Dr Gonzi said that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) recently approved two applications related to the master plan for the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST) campus, which will involve an investment of €50 million.

On job creation, the prime minister promised he would continue to do his utmost to continue generating employment opportunities. Although Malta has the fourth lowest rate of unemployment in the EU, he noted there are still 6,000 people who are registering for work.

At the same time, he referred to the fact that economic growth in the first three months of this year was registered at 2.3%. Other countries have not been registering growth, he said, with rates such as 0.1% in the UK.