The Economy Ministry is currently going through the consultation period for the upcoming 2021 Budget, which will take place in October, in order to ensure that the Government continues helping the public, Economy Minister Silvio Schembri told The Malta Independent.
“We are currently going through a consultation period, and just yesterday we were discussing with the Chamber of Commerce, discussing in detail on how we can continue providing assistance and aid. As a government we wish to continue helping, and now we have the benefit of the experience of how certain measures worked, so now we evaluate and see how they worked.”
Back in June, the government announced a ‘mini-budget’ aimed at helping the economy recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The budget included a number of measures aimed at helping families and businesses. This newsroom asked Economy Minister whether any of the measures introduced in this budget will be included in the October 2021 Budget.
“Currently the government is evaluating and discussing the schemes, as we need to understand that this aid we provide is coming from the taxpayers, so we need to ensure that there is a balance, and not that we provide everything to everyone and seem nice and populist, only so that in the next few months we turn to those people and increase the prices.”
He said that what is happening now is all sustainable for the future, so that the government does not have to turn to the residences and families and add extra costs on them. “We are balanced so that we do not exceed expenses for the local families.”
97% of Maltese have collected vouchers
On another note, this newsroom asked Schembri regarding why a number of Maltese and local residents are still waiting to see whether they are eligible or not for the €100 voucher scheme. Whilst distribution of the vouchers began back in July, two months down the line there are still a number of individuals who have not received their vouchers.
“There was no hiccup in the voucher scheme and when it comes to the Maltese who have the correct data and address, I have been informed that 97% of Maltese have collected the vouchers.”
He explained that in the next week, the Ministry will be sharing all the information and measures regarding the vouchers. “We will be looking through everything, even the difficulties faced, such as for example when a number of foreigners had changed their address and it was difficult to find them, but we had a number of methods to address these issues.”