The government and the Opposition were locked in a war of words over the national debt, in the wake of figures published by Eurostat on Wednesday.
The government said that of the €372 million rise in the national debt last year, which was election year, €300 million were written up in the first quarter of the year, under the PN leadership of Simon Busuttil, then deputy leader, and then Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.
Since the election in March last year, the public debt has risen by only €72 million under the new administration, the government said. Simon Busuttil cannot deny these facts, it added.
It recalled that Eurostat on Wednesday announced that the public accounts deficit declined from 3.3 per cent of the gross domestic product to 2.8 per cent. Instead of welcoming this, the leader of the Opposition is trying to deny Eurostat’s figures and insisting there was nothing true. The figures had been under the scrutiny of the best public accounts statisticians of the EC, but Dr Busuttil is casting huge doubts and focussing on a rise of €400 million in the national debt.
The government said Dr Busuttil is insisting that this sort of increase had never occurred under Nationalist governments, but the truth is very different. It said Eurostat figures on the national debt indicate that last year the national debt rose by seven per cent. In the 15 years of PN governments, the national debt rose by 165 per cent, or three billion euros. In nine of these 15 years, the expansion of the national debt was as much relatively, or higher, than that registered in 2013.
A large part of the increase in the national debt in 2013 occurred under the Nationalist administration. What was supposed to have been a caretaker administration ended having a €107 million fiscal deficit in the first three months of 2013, during the electoral campaign.
This was the highest financial deficit the country had seen since the first quarter of 2008, which incidentally was also an electoral campaign, the government added. As a result of this the national debt rose from €4.9 billion at the end of 2012 to €5.2 billion in March, 2013.
The government said that in the same manner, the guarantees the government enters into for state company debts went up by less than €2 million under the present administration. In the last year of Nationalist government, state guarantees had gone up by €125 million.
The Opposition was unconvinced. It said the Prime Minister is trying to deceive the country to cover up a rise of almost €400 million in debt.
It said Eurostat figures showed the public debt up by almost €400 million in 2013, a rise of eight per cent over 2012.
Dr Muscat had shed no light on the discrepancies the PN had drawn out, that in spite of a €203 million deficit, the debt had risen by €373 million. When considering the consolidated fund and subtracts government investments, totalling about €20 million, the difference remains of about €150 million, the PN said.
Instead of clearly explaining these discrepancies, the government’s statement tries to confuse the people with an explanation which cannot be believed. Had it been true that in the first three months of the year the public debt rose by €300 million, that figure would have had to be added to the entire deficit, and the government would not declare that it ended the year with a deficit of €200 million.
This tale of the Nationalist government running a deficit of €300 million in three months had not been told before today, although this government has drawn up two budgets in which it could have made this point. It is clear, the PN said, that Joseph Muscat is trying to deceive people on the eve of an election, as a plot to avoid giving a proper explanation.
The PN said the government has the duty to explain clearly which it is claiming that the deficit expanded only by €203 million when the public debt rose by €372 million. Does the discrepancy include the debt accumulated under the agreement concluded with Arriva, or payments not made by Enemalta Corporation to the government, so that it would appear financially healthy?
The PN went on to appeal to the government to be more transparent, and not continue hiding behind orchestrated features to avoid the media’s scrutiny.