More than 34,000 families will be receiving a one-time compensation in September to cushion the impact of the increase in the price of fuel, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech announced yesterday.
Each family will receive €70, in addition to €35 for each dependent within that family. This means a family of four will be receiving €175, a family of five will get €210 and a family of six €245.
The compensation will benefit more than 62,000 individuals within 34,195 families who make a gross revenue of under €8,200 a year, excluding social benefits.
The agreement on this compensation was reached at a recent Malta Council for Economic and Social Development meeting and the families will be receiving their cheque in the third week of September.
Announcing the details of the compensation, Mr Fenech said the government acknowledged that the increase in the price of fuel and its spill-over effect onto utility bills had impacted people negatively, especially the more vulnerable. This was why the government was forking out €4 million in direct assistance.
He said most of the families affected, including single parent families, people registering for work and pensioners on a minimum pension, already received social assistance. The cut-off date for the means testing exercise that worked out who the beneficiaries would be, conducted jointly by the finance and social policy ministries, was June 30.
He said 17,500 families qualified automatically, a further 13,124 qualified through means testing and although the remaining 2,866 families did not qualify, the exercise showed they were still beneath the threshold once all benefits they received were deducted.
Mr Fenech said that although the government’s original budget for the scheme was between €2 and €3 million, the amount was increased to include more recipients.
The number of people receiving the benefit was not as high as the General Workers’ Union had expected when it insisted at MCESD level that the compensation should be given to everyone. Rather than raising wages half way through the year, the government opted for this temporary solution before establishing the Cost of Living Adjustment, the minister said.
This benefit is over and above the energy benefit already being given to around 30,000 families.
When asked, Mr Fenech said discussions on changes to the Cola mechanism were ongoing.
The government’s decision to compensate vulnerable families was welcomed by the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin and the Malta Employers’ Association. In its statement, the UĦM said its persistence on the matter had paid dividends while the MEA said it had predicted the need for such compensation prior to the last budget.
Also welcoming the decision, the Confederation of Malta Trade Unions called it a much needed boost to families’ disposable income. It also said that the impact of energy bills on other levels of society should not be underestimated.