Pre-set approach?

Alfred Sant's opinion piece on the pre-budget document is an excellent specimen of his, by now, well-documented style and inimitable approach to national politics. He repetitively peddles the same old mantras and continuously rubbishes anything the government does hoping that what he says would somehow damage the administration.

He starts off by lambasting the government for the so-called early date set for the presentation of the next budget and argues that our decision would not contribute to a healthy discussion of the state of our economy and public finances. In doing so, he conveniently overlooks that fact that the government presented its annual budget to Parliament at around the same time in the past two years without compromising the quality or the reliability of this exercise in any way. Then, our forecasts and projections for the economy and public finances materialised and in certain cases exceeded the expectations. In the final analysis, our work delivered what we expected and promised. This has not only been certified by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the Credit Rating Agencies, but by all those truly independent observers who are not interested in exercises in repetitive obfuscation.

The Leader of the Opposition argues that the budget and, more so, the pre-budget document cannot be taken as a reliable guide to government action. This is rich coming from a person who promised everything to all and delivered none. In presenting its budgets, the government promised the consolidation of its public finances, a restructured and rejuvenated economy, improved environmental protection, quality educational services and increased opportunity and enhanced solidarity for all. We also promised the delivery of the euro to this country as from January 1, 2008. Did we deliver? Facts speak for themselves. The healthy state of our public finances has been certified by independent others. Our economy has been largely restructured and economic growth has picked up substantially as kindly acknowledged by Dr Sant himself. Work and productivity have been incentivised while our people were given a good tax break through the reform of our income taxation system promised in last year's pre-Budget document and delivered in last year's budget. Our investment in the environment is at a record level and is visible to all but the most blinkered observers. We have invested heavily and repositioned our educational system to prepare our people for the challenges emanating from an increasingly competitive and integrated world economy. While, now, we have the highest number of students in further education ever, we are still pushing for improved achievements in this important area. We delivered an excellent hospital and quality health services to our people. We also ensured the sustainability of a wide range of social-welfare programmes as well as a reformed pension system that delivers the certainty and the adequacy of our pension system to our people.

Dr Sant argues that the pre-budget document cannot be taken as a reliable guide to government action. Our deliverables in the past two years were almost all outlined in our pre-budget documents. But, obviously, such a linkage between what we delivered and what we proposed for discussion purposes in our pre-budget documents was conveniently overlooked. The pre-budget consultation process seems to be alien to the Leader of the Opposition. Maybe, it is not part of his value system and certainly not in his style. However, it is an intrinsic part of our declared policy of giving our people a real say in the running of their country and empowering them to participate actively in the affairs of this country. It is in the spirit of giving a voice to our people through our pluralistic policy in broadcasting. It is in furtherance of our policy of local governance whereby we devolved power from the centre to the citizens in our localities. It is, finally, very much in line with our declared and practiced policy of continuous dialogue with our people. The recently published pre-budget document builds upon the documents of the same nature as well as the range of policy documents and strategies published in previous years.

The pre-budget document builds on these policies and strategies and proposes the implementation of a number of tangible measures that are meant to build upon and consolidate our achievements in the economic, educational, environmental and social sectors. However, it also proposes new, dynamic and sustainable approaches to important areas of our daily life like culture and sport. What we proposed was discussed internally, in meaningful public consultation meetings and with other interested organisations and persons in a collaborative manner. What we proposed for discussion has been reviewed for its feasibility, its cost-effectiveness and affordability. What we proposed is a programme for increased and improved delivery across the board in the interest of all our people.

Finally, the Leader of the Opposition discusses the adoption of the euro. No, not to applaud the government for its very significant delivery, but to obscure this achievement through his usual scaremongering tactics aimed at eroding our people's trust and confidence in their own ability to make this country work and compete internationally. He sows doubt instead of confidence.

He sees threats all around as a result of us having managed to secure the euro contrary to his expectations and outright scepticism when we embarked on this venture more than two years ago. He accuses us of not being well-prepared to protect the consumer at a time when the government is being extremely proactive in this area, together with the social partners, in order to ensure a smooth and orderly transition to the euro. No, he ignores all this and repeats the same old arguments in the hope that our country's achievement is tarnished beyond recognition.

Finally, Dr Sant makes a final accusation of non-delivery on the part of the government. If an innovative and forward-looking administration that made this country what it is and gave its people good quality services all round cannot deliver, it is extremely doubtful that someone like Dr Sant, whose major policies have been consistently proven wrong and rejected by the people, can ever deliver anything serious for our people.

Mr Fenech is parliamentary secretary for finance.