The Malta Labour Party has published a technical report on the revisions to National Statistics Office figures and will be forwarding it to the European statistics body Eurostat for scrutiny, said deputy leader Charles Mangion yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference held at MLP headquarters yesterday, Dr Mangion said that the party wanted an explanation of the revisions. “It was played out to be minor revisions, but they are anything but minor. They are, in fact, substantial revisions,” he said.

Dr Mangion said that the NSO fell under the direct responsibility of the Office of the Prime Minister and he therefore has the responsibility for ensuring that the NSO’s credibility is maintained.

The MLP deputy leader said that in the space of only a few weeks, three substantial revisions had been made to statistics – one of which was the revision of the deficit in 1996, where the NSO said that statistics showed there had been an Lm80m plus discrepancy for that year.

The second revision, said Dr Mangion, was a more widespread one that concerned Gross Domestic Product in the 10-year period between 1996 and 2006. This revision changed figures that had already been reviewed. He said that in the period between 1996 and 2003, when Lawrence Gonzi was neither Prime Minister nor Finance Minister, the figures had been reviewed downwards by an average of Lm15 million per year.

In the years that Dr Gonzi has been PM, said Dr Mangion, GDP had been reviewed upwards at rates of Lm7.7m, Lm16.7m and Lm10.4m for the years 2004, 2005 and the first six months of 2006 respectively.

Dr Mangion said that the NSO had not even clarified why the figures had been revised or what the justification was.

Speaking about the revision of employment figures, Dr Mangion said that between June 2005 and June 2006, the labour force survey showed that employment had increased by some 1,222 jobs, of which 73 were full-time.

At the same time, figures for September 2005 to September 2006 said that 4,041 jobs had been created, of which 3,218 were full-time positions. These, he said, were attributed to increases in the retail and wholesale sector – but the figures had been discredited by the Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises.

Referring to transport sector figures, Dr Mangion said that NSO statistics showed that during 2005, this sector had an increased payroll of some Lm6m. “But when you factor in that the largest operator in this sector is Air Malta, and that its restructuring process saw a downturn in pay packets – this increase is puzzling and an explanation is needed,” he said.

He also made reference to a claim by the NSO that the revisions do not change the overall picture of Malta’s economy. “But our report shows otherwise,” he said. Dr Mangion did not say who had compiled the report.

The deputy Labour leader said that when it came to investment, more discrepancies became apparent. September, he said, showed that investment had contributed an almost one percentage point increase to GDP. But in December, the contribution from investment was only 0.3 per cent. Dr Mangion said this contrasted starkly with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s claim that an average of Lm1m per day was being invested in Malta.

“We also want an explanation about tourism. Somehow, 2006’s loss of Lm2.7m in the tourism sector became a profit of Lm0.7m. This had to be evaluated in the context of the fact that fewer tourists arrived and that they spent less money in Malta,” he said.

Water generation was also puzzling, said Dr Mangion. The figures had been revised from a loss of Lm6.8m to a minimal loss of Lm0.4m because government subsidies ran up to more than Lm7 million, despite Lm4 million being allocated in Budget 2006.

Dr Mangion ended by saying that the MLP and the country deserved an explanation, as the NSO’s reasoning was unsatisfactory. “We do not want this to be turned into a partisan issue, but the NSO needs to be credible and this is in the national interest,” he said.

Dr Mangion said that copies of the MLP’s report were being sent to various local economists, the Faculty of Economics at the University of Malta, social partners and various embassies.

Labour whip Joe Mizzi and MP Jose Herrera also attended the press conference.