With all due respect I beg to differ with the way you had handled in your editorial “Half the story” (TMID, 13 May) with regard to the Finance Minister’s statement on the electoral promise of tax cuts. It was you who stated ‘Half the story’ and purposely or erroneously left out the other half of the story with regards to the income tax cuts as proposed by the Prime Minister before the last general election.

As you rightly stated, what Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said was “that the wide ranging income tax cuts that were promised by the Nationalist Party during the electoral campaign will need to be reviewed in the light of the wider economic scenario prevailing at the next budget’s formulation.” While Minister Fenech had referred to the “economic scenario prevailing at the next budget’s formulation,” in no time did he give any impression that the PN’s proposals are to be completely or partially written off. The proposed income tax cuts can be implemented gradually within the next three years and yet the PN or the Prime Minister would be honouring the promises made.

On the other hand you did not only try to hide the other half of the story but even tempted to go beyond that point and delude. For you know fully well that the proposals including the ones regarding the revision of tax bands put forward before the electorate by the PN through its leader Lawrence Gonzi during the last electoral campaign, are part of and based on a five-year plan or electoral programme and not on a short term basis as you tried to make the Trade Unions believe. So much so that the proposals referred to are only two out of 353 and are listed as No.2 and No.3 in page 38 of the Electoral Programme 2008-2013 “Iva, flimkien kollox possibbli’.

In my opinion you are fooling yourself by erroneously believing “that the tax cuts” that the Prime Minister “pledged before the election were simply an electoral ploy, one aimed to gain votes.” There was a time when I myself lacked faith in Dr Gonzi’s political capabilities and integrity but fortunately time proved me wrong as am sure it will prove you, in due course, in running hastily to conclusions on this matter.

George Cremona

Victoria