The second sitting of the session of Parliament started off as a surrealistic affair. The incoming Labour Minister of Finance, Prof. Edward Scicluna, presented a Budget, for 2013, which – he made it clear to journalists – was not his Budget. It was that prepared by the previous Administration, but which failed to clear the voting hurdle, leading to the Nationalist Government being defeated. I doubt that this experience has ever occurred anywhere in the world. But then Malta often qualifies as a unique experience.

Reclaimed land will be feasible only if it is given out for development

This time round the Opposition is to vote in favour of the Budget. Not surprisingly, seeing that it had prepared it itself. The Leader of the Opposition, Lawrence Gonzi, in his swan song to televised Parliament since a new leader will soon be elected, was at great pains to explain how this situation came about. He clearly did not want the outcome to seem like an expression of confidence in the new Government.

That bit of theatre out of the way, what counts is made up of the figures in the Budget, and the intervention of the Prime Minister to wind up the debate. An intervention which saw him launch investment proposals which I do not believe were mentioned in the President’s reading of the speech prepared by the Government, according to tradition, to set out its policies for the legislature.

Figures first. As widely expected, the Finance Minister declared that the realised out-turn as it stands will not match the projection given in the Budget, which was presented as the Nationalists had drawn it up, largely not to shake confidence and probably more so because it had already been cleared by the European Commission.

The minister also said that the previous owners of the Budget proposals had not provided for additional expenditure announced and committed to in the run-up to the general election.

He said the Budget deficit, as things stand, will be well above the old minister’s forecast but that the new minister, will trim spending and try to be more efficient in revenue collection. Thereby the deficit should stand below the magic three per cent, at 2.7 per cent.

We shall see. I must say, however, that I was surprised that Prof. Scicluna did not go into the forecast revenue side at any depth. I still think that the previous minister, Tonio Fenech, either was too optimistic in some of his forecasts, or he included amounts which were one-offs and therefore not sustainable.

We shall see soon enough. The year is already more than a quarter out. At the six-month mark, the Finance Minister might be able to give a better forecast at the out-turn, and by then he might have identified more clearly what was sustainable, and what was not.

Meanwhile pride of place on Monday evening went to the announcement by the Prime Minister of projects which, he hoped, would be undertaken together with the private sector to accelerate economic growth. The best thing about the projects is that they should not involve the Government in additional expenditure.

One of them – to hand out two new casino licences – might actually rake in some revenue, assuming there are takers. The GWU has said that there is interest in the Cottonera Casino di Venezia licence. Presumably that includes interest in the premises. How title can be unravelled and how long it would take to do that is yet to be seen. But, with the beauty and reawakening of the area, new operators might make a go of it.

Whether a casino will survive in Gozo is another matter. It might do well in the summer months, but the winter months will probably be bleak. In the other touted project for Gozo – a cruise liner terminal – the Government would be putting up the land, hoping that private business people will come forward to develop it.

Possibly the Government already has wind that there might be definite interest. One hopes so. Gozo needs fresh ideas which can combine the key objective of not spoiling its natural beauty any further, while giving rise to new activities which will generate economic growth.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced a project for Malta of which he has been enamoured for a while, especially after his visit to the Gulf States some years ago – land reclamation. The project will be difficult to achieve – in the sense that the reclaimed land will be feasible only if it is given out for development which probably will include exclusive residential property, and possibly shopping malls and maybe another casino.

I should think we have enough unsold property at the moment and enough shopping malls too, in operation or in the pipeline. But then, the Prime Minister is unlikely to have ventured forth without knowing that private interest already exists.

Another project is the development of the old shipbuilding land into a centre for maritime actives. Now that is more like it. Malta is an island. Maritime activities should form part of its comparative advantages.

Perhaps the best message of all given by the Prime Minister on Monday was his reiteration that the new Government is business-friendly. In the times we live in that is not surrealistic at all. Let’s hope that a public-private partnership will really develop over the coming five years.