With the Budget coming up in a week’s time the Prime Minister said today the government will not close its eyes to problems affecting low wage earners.
Joseph Muscat flagged the problem of unaffordable rents that was causing hardship to various families, adding his government had the credentials to tackle this problem. He did not elaborate.
In a speech at the Msida Labour Party club, Dr Muscat said the government will continue listening to those telling it they could not make ends meet.
“We are not closing our eyes to these problems… they may seem impossible to solve just like it appeared impossible to reduce electricity bills and eliminate the problem of out-of-stock medicine but we did tackle those issues and this gives us the credibility to solve the new problems,” he told supporters.
Dr Muscat said the above-average economic growth was Malta’s “new normal” and this had nothing to do with good luck.
“Good luck runs out but we continued achieving economic growth that was above the Eurozone average year after year,” he said, adding this was a direct result of government policies.
Dr Muscat said the country was focusing on the future by ensuring children would have job opportunities in thriving sectors over the next decade. The government’s running theme for the coming months is ‘The Next Generation’ that is building on the surplus in public funds registered last year and which is also expected to be repeated this year.
On the Budget, which the Finance Minister will deliver on October 9, Dr Muscat said it will be as good as the all previous budgets.
“We broke the cycle of bad budgets just after an election and good budgets in the last two years,” he said, adding the measures will represent what the economy could afford.
He also noted a historical point that the next Budget will be the first post-election exercise since Malta joined the EU that will happen at a time when the country is not under an excessive deficit procedure.
In a brief jibe at the Nationalist Party’s pre-budget document released last week, the Prime Minister said the report was full of contradictory arguments that showed how the PN had no credentials to run the economy.
“At one point the Opposition criticised the government for having increased taxes by more than double the European average over a 10-year span. It must have been the Nationalist governments who did this because under our leadership we reduced income tax year after year,” he said.
Addressing the criticism on public sector employment, Dr Muscat said the PN did not indicate where the access jobs were, insisting these were mostly in the education and health sectors.
Dr Muscat said people at the last election gave the Labour government a mandate to continue the job that had been started as they yearned for normality.