74% of the measures which made up the 2019 budget have been implemented, an exercise carried out by the Principal Permanent Secretary’s office shows.
The exercise, described by Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar as being essential for accountability and transparency, shows that a total of 208 measures – which equates to 74% - from the 2019 budget have been implemented.
He noted that measures which have not been implemented yet are still on the table, and have definitely not been “put on the shelf and forgotten about”, and will be included in future such reports once they are implemented.
Cutajar noted that since this exercise started being run six years ago, a total of 1,350 budgetary measures have been implemented.
Cutajar also said that for the first time his office will be seeing how each measure fits in with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, an action which will make the budget stronger and more widespread.
Finance Minister Edward Scicluna noted that the best part about this government has been its “change of style” in a fiscal and financial sense. He said that the government was being more concise in order for people to understand things more.
Scicluna noted that without such an exercise which tracks the implementation of the budget, it means next to nothing as it could have been filled with empty promises and the people wouldn’t know. The exercise brings closure to the budget, he said.
“This is the government’s new style; future governments will definitely keep it up and try to improve it, but the past of smoke and foggy promises is finished”, he concluded.