INDEPTH: Caritas Managing Director does not say if budget failed the Caritas test

Caritas Malta Managing Director Leonid McKay avoided saying whether the budget presented by Minister Edward Scicluna last Monday failed the Caritas test.

Mr McKay was being interviewed by The Malta Independent’s Content Director Pierre Portelli, in the second edition of the programme called INDEPTH which is available on www.independent.com.mt.

Asked whether he agrees with the Nationalist Party, that the budget failed the Caritas test, Mr McKay would not say.

“I will not enter into political controversy,” he said, while adding that through the budget the voice of those who are at risk of poverty is being heard.

“But it is only the first step. This, for me, is the criteria for this budget and I cannot say whether it has failed or passed the Caritas test”.

Nationalist MPs Paula Mifsud Bonnici, Robert Cutajar and Stephen Spiteri previously indicated that the Caritas poverty report found Maltese families with two children and one parent, on the minimum wage, require €11,446 to get by, an €800 increase when compared to 3.5 years ago. They argued that the budget will not make up this difference. They also called it a “cosmetic budget.

The programme dealt with the budget and people on benefits, at risk of poverty and in poverty.

In the budget last Monday, Minister Scicluna announced a list of measures which he said will go a long way to help people in the low income wage bracket, describing it as a social budget. The government has however been criticised for ignoring the middle class.