Finance Minister Edward Scicluna justification for a €158 million budget overrun had failed to explain massive overspending by key ministries, the Nationalist Party said today.  

In a statement, the PN said that the minister must "either not know where these extra millions were spent, or is uncomfortable about explaining how budgets doubled, tripled or in some cases blew up from a few thousand [euros] to millions."

Prof. Scicluna yesterday said that supplementary financial estimates for 2016 showed that public sector expenditure was €158 million higher than first projected, arguing that there was "nothing out of the ordinary" about the figure, which was the third-lowest in 16 years (relative to the original budget allocation). 

READ: Finance Minister rubbishes €250m overspending claim

When challenged to explain the reasoning behind specific incidents of overspending, the minister demurred and said that he did not have paperwork related to specific overspends at hand. All expenditure, he added, was scrutinised by Finance Ministry officials before being approved. 

In its statement issued this morning, the PN listed a few examples of extra public sector expenditure that it felt merited further explanation. Among these were: 

• Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis spending €1 million on professional services rather than the €9,000 originally budgeted for
• The Malta Tourism Authority spending €16 million more than the €40 million it had been allocated
• The Economy Ministry spending €2.5 million in contracts, when just €107,000 had been budgeted 
• The Office of the Prime Minister spending €1 million on propaganda when it was originally meant to spend €520,000, and €2.2 on travel expenses rather than the €640,000 first projected

Despite the minister's protestations, the PN said, the fact remained that the government had spent millions more than first expected on travel, propaganda and contracts.