Somebody should be held accountable for the government's failure to meet its obligations to SmartCity , to the detriment of young people who did not find new jobs in IT, Opposition leader Joseph Muscat insisted today.

It was shameful, Dr Muscat said, that when a newspaper (The Times) made enquiries into why projected employment levels at SmartCty had not been achieved, minister Austin Gatt said that the government was to blame, not Smart City.

The government was saying it had not fulfilled its obligations to SmartCity. It was being claimed, Dr Muscat said, that one of the main obligations was the demolition of a pumping station at Xaghjra. Yet, after two years, the Water Services Corporation and the government were saying they were still waiting for a Mepa permit.

Dr Muscat said he doubted the truth of this claim, but nonetheless the situation was a disgrace.

The newspaper had reported that 400 jobs were supposed to have been created at SmartCity last year and 1,000 this year.

That the government as now blaming its own inefficiency for the failure to create these jobs was a disgrace and somebody needed to be held accountable, Dr Muscat said.

It was unacceptable that hundreds of young people were being let down. They had been encouraged to take up IT courses at the University and Mcast, and they were now asking: "Where are the jobs?"

CHARACTER ASSASSINATION

Earlier in his speech, Dr Muscat said it was also shameful how the government and some of its backers had embarked on a campaign of character assassination against a 20-year-old University students who last week spoke up in Austin Gatt's presence about the shortcomings in the bus service.

This country could no longer tolerate a situation where somebody who spoke up publicly against the minister had her details noted in circumstances akin to a fascist state, Dr Muscat said.

Young people were not there to fill backdrops on the stage during political addresses, Dr Muscat said. They were there to be heard, but last week Malta witness bullying and a serious threat to freedom of expression.

These were actions which people had suffered in the 1960s and 1980s and which everyone thought had been consigned to history.

He would personally never tolerate actions against anybody who told him he disagreed with everything he did, Dr Muscat said.

"We will ensure freedom of expression in this country, and freedom from fear of victimisation," he said. The country could also not accept the conservatives' mentality of trying to ridicule people's ideas because these people were 20 years old.

BLAME FOR THE BUS SERVICE ILLS

He could not understand, Dr Muscat said, how Austin Gatt was voicing surprise that he was being blamed for the problems of the bus service.

On the day before the new service was introduced, during a 30-minute launch ceremony costing €80,000, Dr Gatt sought the glory and projected himself as the great reformer of the bus service.

Once he sought the glory, he also had to take the blame, more so when the biggest problem was the routes, which were drawn up by the government after paying many thousands to consultants, Dr Muscat said.

INCOMPETENCE

Dr Muscat said governemnt incompetence was showing in every sector of the administration. In the health service, the lack of planning and mistakes made in the planning of the new hospital were becoming more evident. Just this week, in the gynaecology department, there were 13 expectant mothers waiting to deliver, in a hall meant for nine.

In a shocking declaration, the prime minister had asked what was best, higher electricity costs or more cataract operations.

It would have been better, Dr Muscat said, had Dr Gonzi asked whether it was better to have more operations than a new Parliament building; than a new breakwater bridge; than a new ferry terminal, or instead of a salary increase of €500 per week to the ministers.

In the education sector, Dr Muscat said, half the students who had applied to join the PGSE course were told that there was no place for them, in the same week when the academic year opened. Better planning should have ensured that they would have been told a year before. As it were, their dreams had disappeared.

This lack of planning had come from the same ministry which last year caused so many problems to young people who had planning to take up EU overseas education programmes, Dr Muscat recalled.

Dr Muscat said that while a Labour governemnt would spend whatever was necessary in the education sector, what counted was results. Priority needed to be given to reducing the number of drop-outs after secondary school.

The PL, he said, needed no lessons how to open doors and give opportunities and chances for everyone to succeed.

PN REACTION

In a reaction, the MZPN, youth branch of the Nationalist Party, said Dr Muscat's comment that the PL did not need to take lessons from anyone smacked of arrogance. It said the PL had a negative record in education, and its education spokesman was still the former minister who sent University students to borrow in order to be able to continue to study.

Students, the MZPN said, were being given a wider choice of courses and opportunities than ever before,both at the University and at Mcast, which was set up by the Nationalist Government.

REACTION ON SMART CITY, BUS PROTEST

In its reaction, the IT Ministry said Dr Muscat had ignored the fact that building works at SmartCity were proceeding faster than projected and, as Labour had done before, he had announced the project's death.

"SmartCity is being developed at a fast pace and will be the promised attraction for thousands of jobs in technology. This is not fantasy. This is a project whose growth everyone can see," the ministry said.

The ministry said the developers had honoured and exceeded their contractual obligations, and they were showing, through their investment, that they had confidence in Malta and in the project. Yet Dr Muscat was continuing to show a lack of confidence.

The delays in removing the plant at Wied Għammieq had not delayed the building of the project or the commitment of the developers and the government to create thousands of jobs.

On the bus transport protest by the University student, the Ministry said the minister, Dr Austin Gatt had said that everyone had a right to protest. The government would seek to remedy anything that was within its competence and needed to be changed. The changes made to the routes proved this. 

At the same time, the government had responded to the long-standing complaints about old polluting buses, lack of discipline and services which stopped too early.

Complaints about the operations of the bus service had to be addressed by the operator (Arriva) and the government would ensure that the operator did so.