Prime Minister Jumps Onto #10YearChallenge To Show How Malta Has Changed
Left: Joseph Muscat as Opposition leader in 2009, Right: Muscat delivers a speech in India earlier this week
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat used Facebook’s viral 10-year challenge as a cheeky excuse to reflect on how much Malta has changed in the past decade.
“You often don’t notice how much things have changed until you take a step back and remember how things used to be,” Muscat said at a speech in Żurrieq this morning. “It’s like losing your hair or gaining weight; you don’t notice it’s happening from one day to the next but realise it when you look at old photos.”
Muscat said that Malta’s biggest problem ten years ago, back when he was Opposition leader, was that electricity bills were too high and subject to drastic price fluctuations.
“For many people, their problems started and ended with their electricity bills,” Muscat said. “I used to remember visiting home that were dark inside because people only switched on their lights when they had to. I remember people buying kerosene heaters to save on their electricity bills and shop owners telling me that people held back from buying their products when their electricity bills were approaching.”
Joseph Muscat takes a selfie during an official visit to India
The Prime Minister noted that the economy has changed so drastically that workers have gone from “begging” for work to having the luxury to demand better working conditions, this while investment continues to rise.
“You’d be hard pressed to think of a significant private investment ten years ago, whereas nowadays we’re almost at a stage where we can choose which investments we want. Whereas the government of ten years ago used to give investors a free hand just so long as they invest, the government of 2019 is now demanding money as a prerequisite to investment.”
Government finances have also taken a turn for the better, with Malta registering subsequent surpluses and the IIP sovereign wealth fund serving as a massive war chest for future capital projects.
Elsewhere, Muscat noted that in-work benefits have incentivised people to find a job and help lift themselves out of poverty, pensions have increased year after year, pills are rarely ever out of stock anymore and tourism has shot up to record levels.
Free childcare, controlled school uniform prices and free school transport for all schools means fewer child-raising costs for parents, and plans are in the pipeline to make public transport free for all Maltese residents.
Muscat also noted that civil liberties have shot up dramatically in the past ten years, with Malta going from one of the only countries in the world that prohibits divorce to a global trailblazer in the field of LGBT+ rights.
However, the Prime Minister warned that the number of women in Parliament has remained stagnant the past ten years, paving the way for a discussion on the introduction of temporary gender quotas.
“I understand that this will be a sensitive debate, but it’s one we need to have because such debates are part of our nature as a reformist government,” he said.
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