The government needs to look beyond GDP statistics and think in terms of social wellbeing rather than simply economic wellbeing, PN leader Adrian Delia said on Thursday.
Speaking in a press conference centred around the PN's Pre-Budget proposals on the social sector, Delia posed a variety of questions - asking whether those who are vulnerable are valued, and whether enough is being done to ensure that pensioners can live adequately after a lifetime of work and service to their families and country.
"It is simply not enough to look at GDP statistics. We need to think in terms of societal well-being rather than simply economic well-being. The two are related but not the same", he said.
Delia said that every government since independence worked to improve Malta's economic standing without sacrificing the country's social conscience. This has not been the case with the current government, he noted, saying that there are some 70,000 people living at risk of poverty, and that more and more pensioners are finding it difficult to make ends meet.
He noted that wages in Malta have increased at half the pace of the EU average while prices of foodstuffs have increased at double the rate of the EU average. "This is not how a caring and balanced economy should work", he said.
Claudio Grech, the Opposition's spokesperson on social affairs and Ivan Bartolo, the Opposition spokesperson for social housing, fight against poverty and social exclusion both spoke of the PN's proposals in this regard.
They called for the establishment of a set of baseline social rights aimed at improving the quality of life of the most vulnerable members of society with adequate old age income and pensions to be included one of these baseline social rights.
Another measure is for the State to devise a system of social transfers built around the individual needs of the beneficiary, hence moving away from a one size fits all systems, along with a framework for fair wages and conditions that respect human dignity and that allows for a decent quality of life.
The government should take the effort to reverse the creation of in-work poverty and hard-core precarious employment, while also positioning social mobility at the core of their model, investing public funds to provide vulnerable people the opportunity to move forward.
Bartolo noted that the only economic model that Joseph Muscat's government is following is to bring over foreign workers, who come to Malta but end up finding a situation which is far from what they had expected, hence continuing to add to the list of people in poverty.
Grech meanwhile said that the role of politicians during the Budget is not just to balance the books, but also to help the quality of life of those in the country's society improve.
Photo by Alenka Falzon