The Central Bank report quoted by the Nationalist Party in a statement on Tuesday was issued six weeks ago, which means that the PN commented about Malta’s economic growth late. More than this, its analysis was wrong, the Labour Party said in a statement today.

The PN, in its statement, said that government consumption rose by 8.3%. This is completely wrong because the report says that consumption had risen by 3.6%, the PL said.

The PN tried to give the impression that economic growth was a result of government consumption. But the Central Bank report shows that only 0.8% of the 4% growth was a result of this, the PL said.

In the first quarter of 2013, under a PN government, GDP growth was only of 1.7%, while national debt rose by 3.8%. In the first three months of 2013, a PN government added six employees a day in the civil service but, in the last 12 months, a Labour government only added one employee a day.

In a counter-statement, the Nationalist Party rsaid that contrary to what is stated by the Labour Party, it is not the Opposition that is stating that Government consumption increased by 8.3%. The Opposition quoted word for word, as evidenced by the double inverted commas at the start and end of the quotation, from page 20 of the Central Bank document where it states that Government consumption rose by 8.3% on a year earlier, contributing 1.6% points to growth. Also, contrary to what is stated by the Labour Party, it is the Central Bank and not the Opposition that is flagging the increase in government expenditure both in absolute terms and as a percentage of GDP growth. The Opposition, in its statement, quoted verbatim extracts from the quarterly review.

In Quarter 1 of 2015, the percentage point contribution of government final consumption expenditure went down marginally by 0.1% when compared to the same period in the previous year. Again, according to the Supplement to 2015:1 document, “at 2.3%, the annual growth rate halved compared with the previous quarter” which backs the statement made by the Opposition that the rate of GDP growth is slowing down.

In its statement, the Labour Party tries to give the impression that the public sector headcount increased during the past Nationalist administrations. Nothing could be further from the truth. The public sector headcount stood at 40,893 at the end of 2012  - the last full year of a PN administration, down from 46,686 in 2004, and 55,000 in 1987. In the past two years, the public sector headcount, rather than continuing on this downward trend, is increasing and has reached 43,892 - that is 3,000 more than it was in 2012. In order to calculate the number of people put on the public payroll in the past two years one has to add to the 3,000 the 1,500 public sector personnel who retire each year bringing the total of persons put on the public payroll in the past two years to 6,000. By the Ministry of Finance's own calculation, the public wage bill is set to increase by €127 million over a two year period and this despite of the smallest cost of living increase given in 2015. The increase in government expenditure is pushing up national debt. In the first quarter of 2015, national debt increased by €143 million when compared to the same period in the previous year.

In its statement, the Labour Party made no reference to comments made by the Nationalist Party with regards to the difficulties being faced by the manufacturing industry. This confirms the lack of interest being shown by the Labour Party and the government in this important sector which provides employment to thousands of Maltese workers.

The Labour Party would do well to invest some time and money in training to be able to grasp better the concepts of basic English, statistics and economics, the PN said.