Muscat: poverty stats shows reversal of damage done by Nationalist administration

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat paid tribute to his party’s recruitment and political education campaign LEAD, which yesterday announced had selected 70 participants.

“The Opposition is focusing on the next week to come, while we are focusing on the next generation through investment and social progress,” Muscat said on One Radio.

Muscat also said he had been satisfied by data from the latest survey on income and living conditions, which showed a widening gap between rich and poor but also that 9,000 people had emerged from the risk of poverty and social exclusion.

“This fills me with satisfaction more than our economic growth record. That would be useless if it did not lead to social progress… still more has to be done, but what we have achieved was reverse the damage done by the Nationalist administration between 2008 and 2013.”

Muscat also cited the recent relocation of the American multinational STARR to Maltese offices as a source of job creation, and hit out at the Opposition Nationalist Party’s negative reception of the government’s achievements.

“I have not yet understood if the PN leader wants the Opposition to be represented on the waste management committee,” Muscat said of a government invitation to have the PN on a new consultative committee on waste.