The Labour Party quotes only what suits it in its statements, the Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity said yesterday, in reply to a statement by the MLP about children’s allowances.

When the children’s allowances were amended in 1996, there was a substantial reduction in income tax, the ministry said, and the allowances for families with the lowest income had been more than doubled, so that children’s allowances cost Lm18.3 million in the rest of 1996 and Lm20.4 million in all of 1997. Labour did not make any changes to the system in its two budgets between 1996 and 1998.

This year’s budget continued building on the 1996 system. The opposition did not refer to the promise by the leader of the opposition to take the children’s allowances system back to 1995, meaning that many families would see a substantial drop, the ministry said.