When one looks between the lines of what the populist Government said yesterday, one realizes that the capital expenditure in the country has been slashed by half. The Government didn't say so because it is populist and it just cares about the headlines and not the full picture.

Partit Nazzjonalista Leader Simon Busuttil said this while addressing the European Democrats Students who are meeting at Dar Ċentrali, during the same week when the European People's Party organised its Congress in Malta. Simon Busuttil was reacting to the Prime Minister's press conferences regarding budget surplus.

Truth is, Simon Busuttil said, that the small surplus was registered only because of the fact that the capital expenditure has been slashed by 47%, which is very significant. This besides the fact that the recurrent expenditure still increased, which means that instead of investing in infrastructure, the Government is wasting money to try and get votes, he added.

Simon Busuttil said that people still have difficulties in making ends meet with their salary or their pension, precarious work is still there, whilst the equal pay for equal work principle does not exist because there are hundreds of people getting paid less than other people doing the same job. 

PN Leader Simon Busuttil said that this is the problem of populism and why it is important that it is tackled. "Populism is a threat and a challenge for the European Union, and until we address it, it is going to create problems for most of us, both at a national level, but also at a European level," Simon Busuttil added.

He also insisted that populists tend to speak about, ride over and exploit the problems for vote-catching, rather than speak about solutions. He said that it is time for true politicians to unite to beat populism, to cut their bluff and come clean with solutions. "We must challenge them to be honest," he said.

He referred to the Brexit debate, and reminded those present about what Nigel Farage used to say before the referendum, but then had no idea what to do after winning the Brexit referendum. He remarked that Brexit, instead of triggering the breakup of the European Union, triggered what could be the breakup of the United Kingdom. In fact, this week, the Scottish Parliament voted in favour of a referendum on the independence of Scotland. "There are consequences for populism, and the consequences can go beyond an electoral cycle," he said.

In a reply, the Labour Party said that the Leader of the Opposition mistook the date, as first April is tomorrow, not today, implying that it should have been an April's fool joke.

In a separate reply, the Finance Ministry said the Opposition leader Dr Simon Busuttil thinks that he can fool and mislead the people for the sake of downplaying a historic 36-year record made by this Government—a fiscal surplus on its public accounts. 

Many were the  Nationalist administrations that could not achieve this fiscal target, in spite of trying hard. Who can forget the various years given in the past as surplus fiscal targets—2010, 2011 and 2012. At one time this came to look like a futile crusader’s search for the holy grail.

Dr Busuttil talks of a slashing of capital expenditure in 2016 over the previous year. He knows very well that there was no slashing of capital expenditure in 2016. That year was a normal year for its place in the EU Funds Budgetary cycle. The year 2015, however, was not normal at all. It was an exceptional one where capital expenditure reached an all-time high, for the simple reason that this government had the unenviable task of spending EU funds which had been left largely unspent by the previous government during the 2007-2013 multi-financial framework, the ministry said. Indeed, 2015 was an exceptional year in which the government managed to utilise all the allocated EU funds, in spite of the enormous logistical tasks involved in implementing many projects in one year.

In 2016 we were back to a normal expenditure year during which, admittedly, and statistically, the capital expenditure was lower than the previous year (2015).

But Dr Simon Busuttil ought to know, too, that EU projects have practically a neutral effect on government public finances. Since programmes are EU funded, increasing or decreasing EU programmes would affect the inward flow of EU funds accordingly, leaving an almost negligible effect on the balance, the ministry said.

It is quite rich of the Leader of the Opposition to downplay the government’s historic achievement of turning a €362 million deficit in 2012, Malta’s biggest deficit on record left as legacy by the party he now leads, into a surplus in just four years. Incidentally, the capital expenditure during those years (2010 to 2012) was at the same level of 2016. Still, a budget surplus then had remained a pipe-dream.