Finance Minister Edward Scicluna this evening scored the PN's backing to a GRTU call for a further 30% cut in electricity tariffs, saying that tariff cuts were no longer 'Alice in Wonderland' for the PN.

Prof Scicluna was speaking at a  public consultation meeting on the Budget. He said the PN had, before the general election, claimed that the tariff cuts promised by Labour could not come about. Now the PN was calling for a 30% cut over and above the 25% cut announced last year.

The PN was also no longer asking how the government was funding the tariff cuts.

Prof Scicluna said he was surprised that the GRTU had made such a request now, and not under the PN when tariffs were high.

(The GRTU made its call last week after noting a steep decline in the international price of oil).

The government had a vision, Prof Scicluna said and tariffs would decrease.

In his comments Prof Scicluna defended the state guarantee on borrowing by the consortium building the new power station, saying such guarantees were not unknown in the EU. Examples included the building of a nuclear power station in the UK and projects in Finland and Poland.

Prof Scicluna said the present government had boosted the economy, with growth now among the highest in the EU. At the same time the deficit had been narrowed, without austerity, and unemployment was the lowest ever. The number of people at risk of poverty was the smallest in a decade and the number of defendants on welfare was down.  

This government, he said, had restored economic credibility for Malta. Gone was the skepticism about the government's economic performance, he said. 

On pensions, he said the reform process would continue. The government was working on a package of benefits to correct injustices affecting current pensioners.

Insurance companies and banks would soon issue packages where account holders would not be taxed on the savings they parked there for a private pension.