The Prime Minister was passing the buck by making top civil servants responsible for public sector expenditure cuts, the Labour Party charged yesterday.

Accusing Lawrence Gonzi of using the heads of government entities as “scapegoats”, Labour spokesman Helena Dalli said the government had announced programmes and initiatives it was well aware it would not be able to implement.

Dr Gonzi had no moral authority to order such cuts when he had given his Cabinet a €500-a-week raise and had never balanced a single budget, Dr Dalli said.

Last month, the government announced that public sector expenditure would be slashed by 0.52 per cent, which amounts to approximately €40 million.

The €40 million savings will come from reduced overtime, only partial replacement of retiring civil servants in non-essential roles, cuts in subsidies to government entities and reductions in programmes and initiatives. Government officials have resisted pressure to spell out which programmes and initiatives will be cut, with Finance Minister Tonio Fenech yesterday saying details would eventually be released as supplementary estimates “later in the year”.

Mr Fenech was speaking at a press conference called to rebut Dr Dalli’s earlier statement, which he said was “unacceptable.”

“Civil service heads are the day-to-day managers of government expenditure. The Prime Minister was simply asking for their help and cooperation in implementing the cuts,” he said.

Such help, Mr Fenech said, had always been forthcoming. He said the timing of Dr Dalli’s remarks was “ironic”, given that Eurostat yesterday published a report citing Malta and Italy as the two countries to have most reduced their debt at the tail-end of 2011.

The expenditure cuts were a pre-cautionary measure and were never requested by the European Commission, the minister reiterated.