The Government will be considering the development of an alternative mass transport system such as an underground, monorail or harbour sea connection through a feasibility study that will be announced in tomorrow’s Budget.

The plan is to tap EU funds to help finance the study, which would serve as a basis for an integrated system that addresses the islands’ future transport needs.

The move is coupled with short-term measures aimed at addressing traffic and parking problems, which will include the banning of heavy vehicles on arterial roads during rush hours, the banning of horse drawn cabs on main roads and changes to the Controlled Vehicular Access (CVA) system in Valletta.

As from December, parking in Valletta will be free from 2pm onwards and free all day on Saturdays.

Overall, the Budget, the first entirely conceived by the Labour Government, will contain measures to promote childcare and female participation in the labour market.

There will also be upward adjustments to disability allowances and widowers’ benefits and reductions on taxes for part-time work.

The registration tax on small capacity vehicles will be revised downwards, while increases in taxes are expected on alcohol, cigarettes and cement.

Finance Minister Edward Scicluna will also be launching White Papers with the Budget, aimed at tackling the problem of out of stock medicine and local enforcement.

This will technically be Prof. Scicluna’s second Budget after Labour was elected to government in May. However, the Budget he delivered in April was essentially the same programme presented by the former PN administration.

In May, the European Commission placed Malta under an excessive deficit procedure after it in 2012 recorded a deficit of 3.3 per cent of the GDP, breaching the eurozone’s three per cent threshold.

It’s a phenomenal U-turn in Labour’s economic and financial policy

In the pre-Budget document, the Government said it planned to rein in the deficit and bring it down to 2.7 per cent, as a result of an increase in tax revenue.

For 2014 it is pledging to borrow €50 million less next year to further reduce the deficit and compensate for it with indirect taxes – a move which has elicited criticism from the Opposition.

Prof. Scicluna’s predecessor and current PN spokesman on finance, Tonio Fenech, said the Government was going against its electoral promise of countering the deficit with economic growth and would instead resort to raising taxes.

“We’re seeing the opposite of what they’ve promised seven months since their election. Instead of economic growth, Edward Scicluna is proposing new taxes and government fees of office that will amount to some €50 million. It’s a phenomenal U-turn in Labour’s economic and financial policy,” Mr Fenech had said.

In a reaction, Prof. Scicluna had said the Government planned to reduce direct taxation and increase indirect taxes but argued that the €50 million figure was not cast in stone and that it was not made up entirely of revenues drawn from Maltese taxpayers.