The measures announced last night in Budget 2008, were nothing more than a question of too little, too late, Malta Labour Party leader Alfred Sant said while giving a short reaction to yesterday’s budget speech.
Budget 2008, Dr Sant said, revealed a stagnant government that was afraid of the coming elections. Half the population, he said, would be making its own calculations and would readily come to the same conclusion.
The budget, the Opposition Leader added, showed the government was aware of the burdens being faced by the Maltese population and, in a confused fashion geared at collecting votes, gave back a little bit of what it had already taken over years of tax hikes.
The budget, he added, confirmed that the government had no strategy with which to combat the rising cost of living, the largest problem being faced by Maltese families. Nor did it contain any new ideas on generating and safeguarding employment.
The budget for the coming year, Dr Sant argued, was rife with repetitions of proposals that have cropped up continuously over the years, but which never materialised. Now, Dr Sant said, the government was proposing a raft of projects to be completed within the space of a few years, projects it had so far been unable to get off the ground over the last 20 years.
The Lm1.50 per week rise in the cost of living adjustment, Dr Sant said, did not come close to mitigating the country’s rising cost of living or the electricity and water surcharge.
Commenting on measures aimed at boosting education, Dr Sant observed that despite all the talk from the government, expenditure on education this year was actually EUR20 million less than what had been proposed in the budget for 2007.
While year after year the government had earned millions by raising different taxes, this year’s budget had been intended to give the impression that the government was lowering taxes, but the tax relief being announced was a case of too little, too late to satisfy thousands of hard-hit families.
The wide-ranging revision of the children’s allowance, Dr Sant said, merely gave back a little of what it has been taking from families over the years.
The government, he added, was also keeping thousands of youths back in education, while Malta was at the bottom of the EU league of science and technology students.
Other measures announced yesterday, Dr Sant declared, were years old and half-hearted.
The budget for next year, he added, was an exercise in opportunism and people working out their own calculations, in its wake would confirm as much, as well as the fact that the country needed a change of the sort only the MLP could provide.