While the government has declared that its aim in the forthcoming budget was to combat social dependence, it was putting more people on the state payroll, piling more pressure on public finances.
PN spokesman for finance Tonio Fenech told a news conference on the PN's reaction to the pre-budget document that had the government not employed 3,500 people in its first 13 months in office, but just 1,000 as it had pledged to the EU as part of a plan to cut 500 jobs with the civil service, the jobless rate would have exploded.
Mr Fenech also contradicted the Finance Ministry's claims that for every job being created in the civil service, four were being created in the private sector. In reality the ratio wastwo to one, as in the first 13 months of this administration, there was an increase of 4,227 jobs in the private sector, and 2,042 in the civil service.
The PN spokesman said that official figures were of concern as economic growth was mainly due to government expenditure which was "unsustainable". He said that part of this economic growth was due to artificial growth which was government induced.
Mr Fenech noted that even credit rating agency Fitch had warned that Malta's economy was dependent on domestic demand and on slippage in public expenditure, which could pose a risk to public debt reduction.
Malta had also lost six places in the World Economic Forum global competitiveness, while the EU industrial competitiveness report placed Malta in the category with modest or stagnating economic competitiveness.
Public sector accounted for 40 per cent of value added growth and the contribution by the manufacturing industry to economic growth declined by 10 per cent.
Regarding the state of public finances, Mr Fenech said the deficit target for this year was estimated to be €154 million, but it had already gone up to €210 million by August.
The government, Mr Fenech said, would reach the deficit target only because the EU has introduced a new methodology in the calculation of GDP.
Commenting on the NSO controversy, Mr Fenech accused the Finance Ministry of trying to deceive the people as the reclassification of employees which Prof Scicluna blamed for the increase in the public sector had no overall bearing.
He said that NSO figures clearly stated that there was an increase of 2,042 employees with the civil service. Mr Fenech said that when taking into account the number of civil servants who retired which by the ministry's own estimates was of 1,500, the real number of people employed was of 3,600.
Commenting in the rate of increase in wages, he said that half of the contribution to overall salary increases was coming from the public sector. This meant that salaries in the private sector were increasing at a much lower rate than before.
Apart from the environment, he noted that the government had also ignored the manufacturing sector in its pre-budget document.
GOVERNMENT: PN CUT OFF FROM REALITY
In a reaction, the government said Mr Fenech's statement continued to show how the PN was cut off from reality.
It noted that Malta had been praised by Eurostat because its economy was the best performer in Europe in the second quarter of this year. Investment had grown strongly and unemployment was the lowest since statistics started being compiled.
Ratings agency Fitch had also praised Malta for robust economic growth attributed to government decisions such as the reduction in utility rates, incentives to encourage women to work and other'making work pay' initiatives.
The European Commission had also noted how economic confidence in Malta improved by 3.5 per cent while the central Bank of Malta had reported that local deposits were up by €727 million.
All this contrasted with the situation when Mr Fenech was finance minister and the national debt increased by almost €1m a day, the government said.