Those who last Monday watched the Budget sitting from Parliament would have been impressed by the whole stage-managed scene.
All the stops were pulled out to give viewers a glimpse of the State. The minister droned on for two hours, with figures tumbling out.
And the state of the State was hunky dory. All is in good hands and the future is assured.
Except that it isn’t. The Members on the government side, so ready to bang on the tables every time a measure is announced, missed a table hidden among the Budget’s fine print. Table A.2 states that government debt was €9,003 million in 2022, will be €9,970 million this year and will keep increasing to €13,100 million in 2026. Some assurance there.
Come Spring, as I have been saying for months, Malta expects to be again placed on the list of countries facing the Excessive Deficit Procedure by the EU. Just as it was in Gonzi’s time but with a far lower debt figure.
Tax revenue last year stood at €5,098 million, 87% of the government income, an increase of €503 million over the previous year. Personal income tax rose by €232 million while corporate income tax decreased by €38 million. It’s the people who pay income tax that are paying for the debt, which is nevertheless increasing by leaps and bounds.
VAT stood at €1,189 million, an increase of €188 million.
And yet the government blunders on, telling the gullible this Budget includes the “highest minimum wage increase” in history. This is simply not true. The biggest rise in minimum wage took place in the second half of the 1970 when it increased by at least 35% with a very low rate of inflation.
There is nothing in the Budget Speech and in the tsunami of words, claims, promises that points a sure path out of this quagmire. Over the past months we have learned that the three hospitals sold to private enterprises are not only not “the real deal” as they were described but just money down the drain. Any improvement to the three hospitals has to come from our pockets.
Over the past months we have been drip-fed meagre information about Air Malta, accompanied with declarations the change will be “seamless”. Now we find we are going to be paying the first instalment of the new airline. Without being told the accounts of the past years.
The government tried to pull wool over our eyes by announcing an austerity without calling it so, by trumpeting cuts on spending on Transport Malta and Infrastructure Malta. But otherwise spending speeds ahead – some ministries actually getting more than they did last year (Owen Bonnici). And meanwhile the almighty mess regarding Electrogas, fuel, electricity goes with nobody being any wiser.
The government gives the impression it knows where it’s going but simply has no clue. When the present minister of finance was in charge of Jobsplus he was all in favour of getting more and more people to come to Malta “for they will pay for our pensions”, he used to say. Now he is saying we cannot have all these people. But the government as a whole just looks on and does nothing. It says it is in charge but that is manifestly untrue.
It says it wants to bring efficiency to the roads but does nothing except causing more and more roadworks. Some or many of the roadworks are indeed needed but people are left to their own devices to find alternative routes without being helped to do so, as happens everywhere.
The people that the government has put in charge of its ministries and programmes and initiatives are party boys and girls, mostly from One News, high on propaganda and vituperation but otherwise incompetent. Or related to ministers. And the whole country shows it.
That’s what you get when the head himself was chosen in a rushed race, without any tested experience and promptly surrounded himself with yes-men and sycophants. We will be carrying the whole load.
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