Government sending cheques, not bills, Abela says about 2026 budget
PM claims Malta’s economy is Europe’s best and criticises Opposition’s ‘lack of ambition’
While budgets of the past used to bill citizens, the current PL government's budgets gifted people cheques instead, Prime Minister Robert Abela told party supporters on Sunday.
The prime minister was speaking at Għaxaq, addressing a crowd about the strengths of his government’s latest budget. He said that, among others, the government had allocated €28 million in cheques this year.
“Previous governments would send out bills after the budget, but we are sending out cheques after the budget,” said Abela.
He said the scheme was first introduced by Joseph Muscat in the 2018 budget, when €11 million was allocated to workers who had faced injustices.
Abela said his government had allocated €28 million this year and had spent €158 million over the last eight years through tax refunds.
Abela went on to claim that while other countries, such as Germany, the UK and France, were struggling economically, Malta’s economy continued to perform strongly.
“Our economy has the best performance in all of Europe,” he continued. “The government will bear the weight of responsibilities, and not expect the families to take on such a burden.”
Abela added that a middle-class family earning up to €60,000 and with two children will not pay any tax for 25 years.
“A quarter of a century without income tax. That’s the reality of our budget: they will save a quarter of a million euros in taxes,” said Abela.
Slamming the Opposition, he said that “someone else” had tried to “copy [Finance Minister] Clyde [Caruana]”, but had left out 30,000 families in the process.
“The Opposition is less ambitious than we are as a government,” he said.
Turning to pensions, Abela said that his government was still “tackling the injustices of the Nationalist government in 2006”, which created two categories of pensioners based on whether they were born before or after 1962.
“The pensions today are more than the wages one received back in the day,” said Abela, adding that pensioners were set to receive €100 million among them this year.
He also addressed the recent ICC ruling on the hospitals' deal.
“They keep repeating the biggest lie they ever came up with about the €400 million, but now the truth is out,” said the Prime Minister.
He said the ICC had confirmed that the PN's claims since 2013 were “a certified lie”, adding that “for every cent we paid for, we got a service back and we got it at a fair value”.
Abela ended his speech by saying that although this budget was the best one in history, next year’s would be even better.