Some politicians did not read Caritas report – Mgr Grech

The way certain politicians spoke about the Caritas Malta research study on “A Minimum Budget for a Decent Living” made it clear that they were speaking without having read the report, Caritas Director Mgr Victor Grech told Parliament’s Standing Committee on Family Affairs on Tuesday. But the report still achieved its aims of stimulating discussion and reflection in the country.

The concept of the minimum wage had been established 40 years ago .... so it meant still at the effective level of 1971-72

He was speaking at the end of a committee meeting chaired by Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia, with MPs Jesmond Mugliett and Frederick Azzopardi (PN) and Carmelo Abela and Justyne Caruana (PL) as members.

Mgr Grech himself was flanked by the lead author of the study, Leonid McKay, and co-authors economist Karm Farrugia, nutrition and consumer studies consultant Dr Suzanne Piscopo and Caritas Malta PRO Joe Sammut.

Mgr Grech said the study had intentionally limited itself to the basic needs, and everything could not be done at once, but it was time for someone to take the bull by the horns and start doing what one could to implement the study’s recommendations.

The intentional limitation to basic family needs could be described as the stock reply to many questions put by committee members on what they would have liked to see more in the study. Such topics included the uncertainty of whether single parents were really single or were receiving undeclared financial aid from partners; undeclared income and the black economy; the need of educating consecutive generations of single parents on the perils thereof; incentives for part-time work and its declaration; lack of accountability on rental income; and the situation of a man or woman who had a working son living with them and the whole family was subjected to the risk of poverty because the working son was supposed to maintain the family rather than preparing for his future.

Mr Farrugia said identifying abuses had not been one of the study’s aims. The existence of abuse did not mean a system was bad. It was a social, not a statis-tical, exercise.

The concept of a minimum wage had been established 40 years ago but had only been increased by the addition of the COLA, so it meant it was still at the effective level of 1971-72. The financial situation of a family of two adults and two children was some €1,600 below the needed minimum wage as established by the study. The recommended minimum wage should not become a stepping stone to claims for higher salaries over the next three years.

Dr Caruana said the study should have focused more on the more vulnerable categories. Was there anything to show if single parents were actually separated or had never married? There should be a short-term ruling for immediate, additional, fast-track social assistance for the thousands who did not receive enough benefits to live decently.

Had the study kept in mind that senior citizens were not all healthy and most had health problems?The exclusion of Gozo from the study amounted to a disservice. Mr McKay confirmed that Gozo had not been specifically included in the study. Indeed Gozitans incurred higher costs, mostly blamed on transport.

Chairman Jean Pierre Farrugia strongly suggested that Caritas meet the political parties before the impending general elections and discuss the study’s findings.

Mr Abela pointed out that since Caritas was not on any political bandwagon it enjoyed more credibility. He observed that the study had looked at families’ and senior citizens’ income but not their necessary expenditures, which could also put them at the risk of poverty. It also seemed to have excluded the repayment of bank loans, an all too present in most families.

Other seemingly-overlooked features included students attending private schools (a phenomenon unique to Malta in the EU), the preponderance of obesity which necessitated special and more expensive diets.

Dr Farrugia said EU programmes did not seem to be propense to helping social underdogs. One feature that reflected this was the lack of extra help to families who lived in smaller homes with much less surface areas for solar power.

Mr Farrugia agreed that the EU was doing very little to close the gap between various strata of society The government, on the other hand, could help needy families with better incentives for solar power.