Prime Minister Joseph Muscat this morning blamed the previous administration for the ongoing teacher shortage, saying that agreements which took place over the past ten years and more, always left teachers with the lowest salary increases.

Muscat was addressing a political event in Naxxar this morning, themed 'The Next Generation'.

Within the context of the budget and measures to be taken on schools, Muscat said, "we understand that in the years that passed, with all the agreements that happened under the previous government.. I was impressed by statistics handed to me by (Minister for Education) Evarist Bartolo, that show, if I am not mistaken, that on eleven out of twelve salary scales, the smallest increases in salaries throughout all the negotiations that happened in the past ten years and more, were of teachers and people within the education sector."  

"We have written it in the manifesto that we will be addressing the increasing of salaries and bettering conditions for teachers," he said, adding,"my friends, we have one thousand defects, but then we stick to our word."

PM asks Delia 'what does the PN stand for?'

Towards the end of his speech, Muscat stated his belief that he thinks the Nationalist Party "does not know where it is going."

"I ask Adrian Delia, what do you stand for?" he said "what are your set principles? I am hearing one thousand things from one thousand different people."

"I am not understanding the values of the Nationalist Party," he said, "is it conventional, or is it taking another direction? I wait for the leader of the opposition to tell us which direction he is offering in everything that is happening in the country."

He added that the Labour government looks back at a set of principles when there is disagreement. "Whenever we don't agree on things we look at factors like social justice, social mobility, equality, and unity, " he said, adding "no matter the differences we have, we go back to those principles."

The budget

Earlier, Muscat said that no increases in taxes within the budget shows that Malta "has come a long way". "Tell me, in the history of our country and if you had to look at all the budgets in the world, would you find any without any increase in tax, without any new tax?" he asked those present. "That is enough to show that we came a long way throughout the years..we are now on the path to be not only best in Europe but also best in the world, these are signals that show we are a special country," he said.

He added that since the budget was presented after the elections, it cannot be seen as having a political scope.

Muscat added that the by not having any new taxes or increases in taxes are included in the budget, the government is targeting all those "pockets of society," that  are not reached through specifically-tailored schemes. "I think the nicest thing about this government is that we never feel we have arrived, we are always seeing how we can help more people," said Muscat.

He highlighted some challenges within the budget, including infrastructure and transport, Air Malta and the rental market.