Confusion over additional Budget cuts

Labour spokesman Helena Dalli would not make a good Finance Minister. It is one thing saying that Lawrence Gonzi has no moral authority to order the additional cuts in government expenditure when he had given his Cabinet a €500-a-week rise and had never balanced a budget. But it is quite another to chide the government for warning department heads about their duty to see how they could carry out its instructions to cut spending.

And even her point about Dr Gonzi not having the moral authority to order the cuts is somewhat flawed now because the Prime Minister has already admitted that they had made a mistake in the way they handled the matter.

Does Dr Dalli mean that the government has now put itself in a straitjacket and has absolutely no moral authority to see how it could make the required savings? Of course, all the Cabinet ministers – and not just the Prime Minister – had gone about awarding themselves the rise in a most shameful manner but surely that episode should not now stand in the way of making the necessary cuts in expenditure if this is what is required for the government to bring down the deficit to a level that conforms to the EU rules.

As the Finance Minister put it so well, civil service heads are the day-to-day managers of government expenditure and the Prime Minister was simply asking for their help and cooperation in implementing the cuts. In fact, it is expected of the department heads to cooperate and a Finance Minister, or any other minister for that matter, would not be doing his duty if he fails to ensure that this is done. This is, after all, what accountability means.

Dr Dalli would have possibly made more impact had she asked the minister to clarify the situation over whether or not the additional cuts were ordered by the European Commission; or if she insisted on the government to say how successful the cost-cutting programme it launched in its 2011 Budget had been.

The situation over the additional cost-cutting exercise has now become a bit confusing for, while the Finance Minister has said that the cuts were a precautionary measure and were never requested by the European Commission, the Prime Minister has gone on record saying that the European Commission had told Malta it needed to make a better effort to consolidate its financial position.

The Prime Minister’s remark, made at the same time that the government announced that it would be cutting the public sector budget by 0.59 per cent of the gross domestic product, was generally taken to mean that the additional cuts were requested by the Commission. Which is the correct version?

The answer is required not because it makes a difference to the need of cutting unnecessary expenditure. Clearly, it does not. However, it is important to establish whether the Commission was entirely satisfied or not with the estimates as presented by the government.

If there is waste, in whatever form, in the operations of the Administration (and everyone admits that there is), it is the duty of all in the Administration to ensure that it is checked all the time, not just when the going is rough, as it is now.

Labour would be wrong, very wrong, if, in its urge to put the Administration in a bad light it works up a sentiment against the government for trying to trim expenditure. This is not the way to win votes.