The Finance Ministry this evening clarified the situation about the €66m in duties collected by Enemalta which were not passed on to the government last year.

It said the amount was shown as due from Enemalta in the government's accounts and it was also shown as owed to the government in the corporation's books.

The ministry said it had yesterday given two figures to describe the deficit. The first was of €342 million, based on cash accounting. The deficit would have been reduced by €66m had the funds been transferred to the corporation last year.

The second figure, based on accrual accounting , was of €225.9 million, or 3.3 per cent of GDP. This figure included the €66 million.

Therefore, the ministry said, the deficit figure of 3.3 per cent of GDP based on the accruals systems as required by the EU, was not reached because of Enemalta's failure to hand over the tax payments.