Sant makes five Budget proposals

Opposition leader Alfred Sant yesterday made five proposals for the government to implement in the forthcoming Budget and said the people expected leadership, initiative and commitment from the government to get the economy back on track.

Speaking in parliament, Dr Sant said his proposals were:

¤ An immediate introduction of the long promised accruals accounting system, thus putting an end to window dressing in government finances;

¤ Setting a three year nominal three per cent limit on growth in government recurrent expenditure, excluding social welfare;

¤ A gradual realignment of the real effective exchange rate of the Maltese lira in a way which would not cause inflation, so as to reverse an 8-10 per cent strengthening of the Maltese lira which took place in the past four years, hindering competitiveness;

¤ A commitment by the government to regional development with particular focus on job creating initiatives in Gozo and the Grand Harbour area without delays for Mepa studies.

¤ Partnerships with local councils to improve the environment, starting from the areas most popular with tourists.

Dr Sant said he was also repeating a call made by Charles Mangion (MLP) on Thursday for the government to bring in a new business incentives package aimed at reducing costs for businesses and creating jobs.

In his speech, during a debate on the economy in parliament, Dr Sant said the people were scared and worried at the lack of government coherence and competence in the management of the economy.

The government claimed it had direction, but the people were seeing confusion. The government was insisting that the opposition should come up with proposals, but what proposals did the government itself have?

At the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, what the government had suggested was that it would guarantee it would not raise VAT and income tax for the coming three years.

This, to say the least, was naive. How could anyone in his right mind ever think that VAT or income tax for small and medium earners could be raised in the current scenario?

What would have made sense were proposals to reduce financial burdens not to promise not to increase them.

But this was a government which was continuing to squander funds, only to then take away allowances and services used by the people, such as the Gozo helicopter service.

This was also a government which was window dressing its accounts, hiding pending expenditure by delaying it, such as in the case of assistance to farmers.

Such was the crazy state of affairs that government recurrent expenditure was growing by five per cent annually while economic growth was one per cent.

Earlier in his speech Dr Sant said the economy reflected the people's situation, the country's situation and the people's future. And the opposition was interested in the situation of the people, of families and of pensioners.

The current situation was such that Malta had had an unemployment figure of over 7,000 for 36 consecutive months.

In Gozo, unemployment this year had gone up to over 600 except for two months, with 55 per cent of the unemployed being youths.

Manufacturing sales in the first nine months of the year had dropped even as manufacturing industry was growing everywhere else in the world. Malta also lost 500 jobs from this sector.

Tourism had also declined in the first nine months of this year.

So what was wrong in discussing what was taking place in the country just before the presentation of the Budget? The opposition had called for this debate to see what could be done, especially when the tax burden was getting heavier and the people were not getting value for money.

The motion presented by the opposition mentioned various sectors, such as Gozo where not only had job opportunities dried up, but the helicopter service had also been discontinued.

Unemployment was also becoming endemic in the south of Malta.

What was the government doing for the country to win its competitiveness back?

What was being done to really rein in government spending?

While the government cancelled the Gozo helicopter service it spent millions on Dar Malta in Brussels and the Brindisi terminal. It had also wasted four years before taking action to bring spending on the hospital project in check, with the country losing millions of liri.

What was being done for things not to continue going from bad to worse?

The people, Dr Sant said, had not got used to hearing that the situation was improving. They now expected proper management of the economy and real results.