Labour spokesman against 10-year rise in pension contribution period

Opposition social welfare spokesman Karl Chircop said yesterday that he personally disagreed that the contribution period for eligibility to the government pension should be raised from 30 years to 40 years, as the government was proposing in its white paper on the pension system reform.

Dr Chircop stressed when speaking in parliament that he was expressing a personal view and not Labour Party policy, but at the risk of political suicide, he would insist that it did not make sense for the contribution period to be raised by 10 years when pensionable age was being raised by five. Such a measure would mean that the people would be taxed more in order to be eligible for their pension.

The Labour MP, who was speaking during the budget debate on the Ministry of Solidarity and Family Affairs, also hit out at the government over children's allowance.

He said that the budget allocation for children's allowance had been reduced by over Lm650,000 despite the boasting by the government of having improved the allowance for families with four children and more. This was not the way for the government to induce families to have more children to correct demographic imbalances.

The outlay on children's allowance had fallen by a third under PN governments and now reached Lm14 million. The time was ripe for both sides to sit together and see how to strengthen the family in the face of present-day challenges.

Dr Chircop said the National Commission on the Family could not work with a budget of just Lm15,000 a year. Various measures could be taken to help the family. For example, in job placements, the ETC should give priority to heads of family over others who were single. The Family Commission should have a say on those agencies dealing with education and housing.

Turning to housing, Dr Chircop said the Housing Authority could not continue selling and renting housing at rates which were being worked on commercial terms, putting them out of reach of those who needed social housing most. Indeed, the government needed to act to restrain the growth in house prices, which was rising faster than wage inflation.

He said NGOs are doing valuable social work which the government alone could not do. Yet NGOs were being kept in the dark as to what assistance they would be getting from the government and could not plan.

Dr Chircop said the tax burden was continuing to grow heavier and Malta now had one of the highest rates of indirect taxes in Europe. This tax burden was having negative consequences on the social sector.

The situation was compounded by growing unemployment, forcing more people so seek social assistance.

The budget had come up with a positive measure to encourage female participation in the labour force. But where would these women work?

Marie-Louise Coleiro, Labour spokesman on social solidarity, said the budget would make it more difficult for those with a small income to keep up with the cost of living. What type of social impact assessment had been carried out on the austerity measures presented in the budget?

A growing number of people were working part-time as their primary occupation, a situation which reflected an under employment situation. Many young people were also being employed on a short-term contract basis. This was creating a situation where young people could not plan long-term.

The people's purchasing power was falling, and Malta was now ninth from the bottom of the list of EU purchasing power standards, 24th in the employment rate and last in the youth education attainment level.

Malta also had the highest percentage in each age group of persons without upper secondary education and the highest rate in Europe of early school leavers. NSO statistics also showed that nearly 15 per cent of persons were at the risk of falling below the poverty line. Those most at risk were in the southern harbour area, which included the Cottonera area. However, there were no measures in the budget addressing this region in particular.

The Labour MP said that at a time of government financial problems it was inconceivable that government transport costs had increased by an average of Lm5 million a year. Travel and hospitality spending would remain the same as last year, without taking heed of reimbursements of EU travel. Malta was also to spend Lm1.5 million for the Commonwealth heads of government conference.

Contributions to government entities also remained the same, despite the fact that even the FOI had drawn attention to the fact that these corporations had to be leaner. Training for government workers, on the other hand, had decreased by 30 per cent.

The budget had nothing in particular in favour of persons with disability and pensioners, 18 per cent of whom were on the brink of poverty.

Ms Coleiro said only 871 families would benefit from increases in children's allowances.

Labour MP Helena Dalli referred to an incentives package for employers to set up child care facilities. The Labour government, she said, had done the same within the Industrial Development Act but when this government changed the law into the Business Promotion Act, the measure was not included.

Now six years on, the government expected to be congratulated for coming up with such a measure. Removing it in the first place did not make sense.

The Labour government had also worked on child minding regulations and the Nationalist government that followed had continued working on them even setting up a task force for this purpose. Now the budget was saying that the government intended to regulate. Why? The studies were complete and they should be adopted rather than embark on a new process.

Referring to the female participation rate in the workforce, Ms Dalli said the number of women in every sector was going down, not because women did not need to work, but possibly through lack of facilities. The measure proposed in the budget to encourage women to return to work was positive but it was not enough.

Ms Dalli criticised court judgments convicted of beating up their wives were not given harsh enough sentences on the pretext that they were acting under passion.

Beatings should not never be justified, Ms Dalli insisted.

Labour MP Joe Abela said the increase in the price of kerosene would cause hardship for many old, low income people.

Turning to refugees, Mr Abela welcomed the increase in the Refugee Fund from Lm85,000 to Lm250,000 but insisted that more manpower needed to be deployed to help the migrants, such as at the open centres. Such manpower should also be available to NGOs working in this sector.

Stefan Buontempo (MLP) said that apart from the 13 per cent decrease in the Housing Authority's budget, the department of social housing was also experiencing another decrease of 10 per cent capital expenditure.

He said that conditions for those applying for subsidised accommodation were alarming.

The government had 8,739 properties and another 9,967 requisitioned residences yet only 200 became vacand every year. Clearly, there had to be a review of how the system was working. Yet only two workers were available to check whether the 18,500 properties, worth over Lm550 million, were being used by the people they had been allocated to.

The system of granting social accommodation also had to be seen to and no one should revert to a minister to be allocated a property.

The government was propsing a shared ownership scheme where the tenants would buy half their property, but was the government aware that the banks could not legally give loans to tenants to buy half a property? If such loans were to be granted, tenants would have to pay back some Lm76 a month.