Budget 2019, read out last night by Minister Edward Scicluna, is not just promoting continuity, but also spreading the proceeds from the growth registered these past years.

As was widely announced over the past weeks, the accent this time is on targeting in a special way those sectors that may have fallen back or rather who were not moving ahead as the other sectors of society are.

This is the third consecutive year in which no new taxes have been levied. This does not mean that new taxes will never be needed but so far, this year, they are not needed – the growth that was registered is enough to compensate for the new measures outlined in the Speech.

So too, is the hefty 26% increase in capital expenditure. This, Minister Scicluna explained, is no U-turn by the government after years of reduced capital expenditure but rather because the financial outlay with regards to programmes and initiatives have reached the stage where the bulk of financing must be put in.

The accent behind this Budget targets those sectors that have fallen backwards. Hence, for instance, the decision that self-employed will become eligible to unemployment benefit until they find work. Hence, too, the decision that part-time workers be exempt from paying income tax as long as they earn less than €9,000.

For the first time in 11 years, children’s allowances have been increased and some 24,600 children will be getting €96 more per year.

Pensioners, or at least 92,000 of them, will be getting a €2.17 increase a week – this strange figure is easily explained by adding it to the COLA increase which will give these pensioners a total increase of €4.50 a week. Public sector employees will now get the possibility, in certain cases, of postponing their retirement.

The Budget Speech also announced increases in some sickness/disability pensions and that the means test with regards to carers for the elderly has been removed.

One important announcement in the Budget Speech regarded housing. These will be two schemes in this regard, costing €100 million, creating no less than 1200 new units, and existing schemes are being extended.

Once again, the State will be forking out €100 million on the roads. (Actually, Minister Scicluna said, last year’s €100 million has not been all spent, notwithstanding the widespread works that disrupted so many roads in summer). The free Tal-Linja card for young people, which has been a roaring success, is now being extended downwards to the 14-year-olds.

The above are just a few of the measures announced yesterday. The spin game is now open and we will have days of the government highlighting all the positive measures and of the Opposition criticizing what was (not) announced.

This is normal. On our part we do think that there has been a rather muted mention of the environment and of course a rather sketchy mention of what will be done in the fight against money laundering, away from signing up to international documents.