Five Nationalist MPs yesterday continued with their criticism of the 2015 Budget, highlighting hidden taxes, lack of transparency and unnecessary political bias.
Speaking on the Budget Measures Implementation Bill, PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami remarked that not a single minister – not even Finance Minister Edward Scicluna – was present in the Chamber to hear what the Opposition had to say. He expressed his disapproval of the way the government was treating parliament and the people.
This was a most important debate, he said, and the government should listen to what the Opposition had to say.
Government MP Charles Mangion pointed out that Prof. Scicluna was in Brussels on government business but Dr Fenech Adami said this did not excuse all ministers.
The budget was replete with new taxes, tariff increases and other new expenses, he said. It introduced taxes on services which were widely used, such as mobile telephony.
The government was burdening industries that were doing well, but which still required support, by a tax on wine and on the food used by fish farms.
Vehicle owners would have to pay an extra €12 or €14 per tyre due to another new tax.
Dr Fenech Adami said previous socialist governments took pride in providing for the citizen “from the womb to the tomb”.
The Muscat government was true to its word – increasing fees for birth and death certificates – and had even introduced a tax for the transportation of the human remains from one tomb to another.
He criticised the government for planning to re-use the Boffa Hospital, saying citizens expected hospitals to be state of the art, just like Mater Dei and the oncology centre, and not second-hand objects.
He complained that celiac sufferers had their subsidy reduced and harshly criticised the authorities for allowing patients to die in hospital corridors as this was an insult to human dignity. The government lacked vision on health issues such as cancer, diabetes and dementia.
He called for a holistic plan to address these realities due to an ageing population.
He labelled the government as incompetent in fuel hedging, saying that the price reductions were superficial and the Maltese had to pay for the government’s mistakes.
Concluding, he said the country needed a diversified and high quality economy to respond to the rapid changes in the global market.
Financial Services Shadow Minister Kristy Debono called for the setting up of an independent economic scale to calculate how the increase in government expenditure was translating into increased efficiency, accountability and effectiveness for the people.
Frederick Azzopardi, Joe Cassar and Ċensu Galea also contributed to the debate.
At the start of yesterday’s sitting, the House paid tribute to the memory of the father of Labour MP Silvio Parnis, who died earlier this month.