PN laments lack of school transport agreement; calls process one of ‘confusion’ and ‘concealment’

With just three weeks left for the beginning of the new scholastic, the government has not yet put the measures in place to fulfil their promise of free school transport, the Nationalist Party said in a statement on Thursday.

They said that was a system that had been promised both by the PN and the Labour Party in their most recent electoral manifestos, and that Minister for Finance Edward Scicluna had also promised it during his Budget speech on 9 October last year. 

However, despite the fact that almost a year has passed since then, the Government is still dragging its feet on the matter to the point that now Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, instead of promising free transport, had promised that whatever parents pay for school transport will be refunded by the government, the PN said.

On Thursday The Malta Independent revealed that parents will be refunded for the fees that they pay school transport operators, but that there was no clear indication given as to when this refund will take place.

Minister for Education and Employment Evarist Bartolo also told this newsroom that negotiations on this measure were in their 'final stages', whilst stressing the complexity in efficiently implementing the service to non-state schools.

The main Opposition party said that parents, school administrators and transport operators have all said in the open that they have been left in the dark by the government.  The PN said that this lack of consultation and lack of planning so close to the new scholastic year means that operators cannot make their own plans.  This is because, the party said, the government is offering only confusion and concealment instead of transparency.

 

from The Malta Independent https://ift.tt/2BZCPCo
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