During last week the budget presented for 2012 was, as expected, very much debated and will continue to be debated in the coming days as well. Of course, people are more concerned with what they have gained or lost when the Finance Minister announced the government’s plans for the coming year.

But, as usual, not all good intentions are materialised as we saw in recent years when the government spelled out initiatives which were lauded by all but which were never actually implemented. One can say that the budget speech is almost a three hour address of good intentions with a number of measures that will absorb some or most of the money intended to be beneficial to the citizen, after these were announced by the Minister with pomp and pride.

Therefore I wonder whether the budget for next year is a déjà vu of what happened in the last budgets. I say this since, after all, not much is implemented in spite of the good intentions.

In the budget, like in previous ones, there are a number of good initiatives which are of benefit to sections of our population. I am not going to discuss how the government opted to help a certain pocket rather than another. After all this is a question of priority. But some of the good initiatives are repeated year in year out, one budget after the other. This is so because until now these were not implemented to the detriment of those who could benefit and to the detriment of the business community at times too.

During the budget debate it’s taken for granted that we mention and hear quite a good number of figures. Of course the budget is an exercise in figures as well. But is it only a financial and economic tool? I certainly believe that it is not. I believe that the budget is also a political tool for the government of the day to try and be popular or mend the political haemorrhage that the party in government is experiencing. In fact, as I see it, in the budget for 2012 the government tried to address pockets of people that traditionally give their support to the Nationalist Party but who are grumbling about what the government did, or what it did not do.

The Prime Minister and his government know that the financial situation is not at all rosy and that the government is doing its utmost to hide this situation. The deficit from time to time can be managed by (for example) one off transactions but the country’s debt cannot. If the government is saying that by this budget it wanted financial consolidation they have to explain how this is being done.

By meeting people one can learn a lot. From my own experience I can say that the most worrying thing for the people is the water and electricity tariffs. These were completely ignored in the last budget. If the government opted to decrease these tariffs it would have been the best proposal for both the family and the business community. It would have been like an injection in the economy since people will start spending again and will not be afraid of these bills. Likewise the business community, especially industry, will be more competitive in a world where each and every proposal can be of help.

The Prime Minister acknowledged that if the water and electricity tariffs were to be decreased then people will not buy solar panels. By this he is acknowledging that first and foremost these can be lowered and secondly he is also forcing those who cannot buy these panels for one reason or another to continue paying more without being in a position to buy these panels.

We needed a budget that stimulates the economy and keeping matters as they are is a huge risk. We have to be forward looking and should seek economic growth to be in a better position tomorrow.

From my analysis this budget does not have measures that can stimulate the economy. Like in previous years the budget mentions a couple of things where industry is concerned but when we see what was actually implemented it’s another story. As a country we need to have our priorities right and work to achieve them. At present I am not seeing this.

Carmelo Abela is Labour Main Spokesperson for Social Policy

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