EU funds - who cares?

Some quarters cannot be trusted with simple mathematics. The Government estimates that in 2006 Malta will be receiving some Lm75 million from the EU budget. Our national contribution will be around Lm22 million.

In 2005 the inward flow was of around Lm65 million while the outward flow was of around Lm22 million. In 2004, Malta received Lm25 million and paid back Lm14 million. A total of Lm165 million flowing in, Lm58 million flowing out - the net gain for Malta is around Lm107 million.

Now how on earth can that be read as Lm1.5 million? Is it not time that we stopped monkeying around with these figures and to focus more on the need to make sure that we use all financial resources that are available to us so that we can indeed achieve economic growth in the shortest possible time?

We are more than sure that people will admire those who come up with practical ideas on how to make these funds work most for Malta. Suffering taxpayers have no time for those who want to waste their time.