Government says it has implemented 70% of measures promised last year

Principal permanent secretary Mario Cutajar yesterday announced that out of all budget measures announced for 2017, 70 per cent have been implemented.

He was addressing a press conference during which an extensive publication providing an account of all the 2017 budget measures and what stage of implementation they are in. The exercise was carried out ahead of the presentation of the 2018 budget on Monday.

The publication also includes measures from 2014-2016 that are still being implemented this year due their nature, such as the building of new schools, which take longer than a year to complete.

Each page gives information on the budget measure, the department it involves, and progress made in each quarter of the year.

In 2017, 265 measures were introduced, while 1,000 have been introduced over the past four years, according to a fact sheet provided by Cutajar.

He stressed that in previous years, people would forget the budget after a few months and when benefits would have started to be received. Through this exercise of providing an account for each measure, a change of culture was required within the civil service. He said this mainly surrounded a culture of planning and monitoring.

Cutajar said that the public administration team often carry out internal audits, investigations and random sampling of ministries to insure that budget proposals are being implemented at the right pace.

Both Cutajar and Finance Minister Edward Scicluna hailed the implementation rate when considering that resources were drained due to the EU Presidency and the general election.

Cutajar spoke of more publications to come out of the civil servant institutions of Malta such as an annual report by the Auditor General, while also speaking about his vision for the fight to reduce bureaucracy.

Scicluna said that under previous governments accountability of budget proposals was “wishywashy”, adding that through carrying out exercises where an account is given for each budget proposals this drastically makes government more accountable to tax payers. He said it was easy for government to forget about past measures and look ahead but that it felt the public was owed a proper run-down of each proposal as it forms part of the wider longterm vision.