Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said the government should only recruit people who continue to enhance its services, rather than just employ them in order to give out favours here and there.

Caruana was replying to a question by The Malta Independent following the warning issued by the Malta Employers Association about a possible brain drain from the private sector as the election is approaching.

The minister said that the public sector cannot compete in terms of jobs with the private sector, and the government is doing its best to empower it rather than hinder its productivity.

The MEA, in its pre-budget document, said that employees were already “jumping ship” from the private to the public sector as the election approaches. MEA head Joseph Farrugia said they were also taking pay cuts to accept jobs with the government.

In his reply, Minister Caruana made it clear that this government’s intentions are to do away with what used to happen in the past. “Past practices that used to be done in the past, now they are over,” he said.

The challenges that the country is facing are “what they are”, he said in reference to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. “We have done our utmost throughout the past year and a half to sustain the economy,” he said, adding that he is proud with the results that have been achieved because otherwise we would not have an unemployment rate that is lower than what is was before the pandemic.

This has come at a cost that the country needs to shoulder in the next months and years, he said. The government needs to be bold and take the necessary action, and “if there’s anything that the pandemic has changed is the way the government behaves.”

Any resources that the government has must be spent wisely and productively, he said.

Caruana was a guest of the Malta Chamber of Commerce during its presentation of its National Workforce Strategy at a time when the government is preparing to present its budget for 2022.