Muscat has admitted that people, including himself, aren’t making ends meet – Adrian Delia

Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia has accused the Prime Minister acknowledging that people are struggling to make ends meet and of sending out the message that it is acceptable for people to skive work.

Speaking at a political activity in Valletta, Delia referred to statements by Muscat, who recently said the Maltese people were so hard-working that even when they skived work, they did so to work at a part-time job.

“[Muscat] said it doesn’t matter if government employees skive work to go and work at a part-time job...Is this how Prime Minister wants the country?”

With this statement, he said Muscat had acknowledged that government workers, including himself, were not managing to make ends meet.

He said that Muscat’s was sending a message to people that they could break the law. The statement, he said, also raised questions about where the country’s surplus was going.

Delia told those present that it was important for the country to understand whether Maltese families were benefitting from the wealth being generated.

The Nationalist Party, he said, was emphasizing the need to create good quality jobs for the country’s workers, insisting that it was useless for the government to say that the country needed more workers.

“We must see what the type of work we are creating is. I have been saying for a long time that the government is importing slavery,” he said.

The PN leader stressed that the government was importing foreign workers who were often being paid below the minimum wage, with this resulting in Maltese workers being unable to negotiate better working conditions.

Unlike the government, he said the PN would be ensuring that good quality jobs are created. Jobs, he said, that allow people to earn a decent living while still having time to spend with their families.

Despite the need for better quality jobs, he said the country was doing nothing to train its younger generation, pointing to Malta’s high early school leavers rate.

Turning to the EU’s work-life balance directive, negotiated by PN MEP David Casa, Delia questioned whether the government would be implementing the directive as soon as possible.

He also pointed to the gender wage gap, which he said had increased from 7.7% to 12.2% since 2011.

The PN, he said, would continue striving to offer certainty to female workers that they would start being paid as much as men are.

“We don't want slogans but true equality. If men earn one Euro, women should also earn one Euro.”