Where is the surplus?

Last year the government registered a surplus of €100 million, following more than 35 years of successive deficits.

Labour turned a deficit of more than €360 million in 2012 to a surplus in just four years, without resorting to austerity. The vicious cycle of excessive borrowing to finance recurrent deficits was broken.

Adrian Delia, while still in his honeymoon period as PN leader, is unfortunately manifesting the same state of denial and negativity expressed by his predecessor. With his innuendos of “Where is the Surplus?” or “Did anyone see this surplus?” he seems to seriously doubt the statistics. He is giving the impression that this is all a big plot, made up by Joseph Muscat, and that we are actually worse off than five years ago.

Does Delia doubt the statistics published by the NSO or Eurostat? What about the people at the PN clubs? Are they not telling him about the increase in their pensions and the lower taxes and utility bills they are paying? Does he not know that the minimum wage is increasing by €8 per week by 2019, directly improving the life of some 4,000 individuals?

This is the first national minimum wage increase since 1989. Delia should ask the 4,000 families benefiting from free child care where the surplus is. He should also speak to one of the 6,000 workers who will share some €11 million in compensation for the past injustices that were never resolved under consecutive Nationalist administrations. While he is at it, he may also ask the nearly 9,000 young people that have benefited from the first-time buyer scheme, saving thousands on stamp duty, what they think of the surplus. Are his advisers not aware that that more than 9,000 people are no longer at risk of poverty and social exclusion?

The government has a plan which is working. The economic achievements are being enjoyed through careful and targeted social measures. Thousands of families are benefiting from these tangible gains with more money in their pockets. All segments of Maltese society have been reached, meaning everyone is better off today when compared to five years ago.

I ask where Adrian Delia has been for the past few years. As a hopeful Prime Minister, Delia should verify his facts before he speaks. I hope he is not following in the footsteps of Simon Busuttil and building his political discourse on misrepresentation. Perhaps, he has been distracted by what is going on within his own party and is out of touch with the general public.

Is the government satisfied with the achievements reached? I certainly believe that we should be proud, but there is still a lot of work to be done. There are pockets of social and economic poverty that have not been alleviated. There are still families who are not receiving enough income to achieve a decent quality of life. So far, we have reversed most of the damage endured by Nationalist administrations between 2003 and 2013. The Prime Minister has pledged his commitment to eradicate poverty in Malta. The will to keep on improving our country is greater than ever. We must be ambitious and aspire only for the best for our country.

Minister Edward Scicluna made it very clear that last Monday’s budget was one that the country can afford. The surplus has put us in a situation where the government can commit to invest €700 million over seven years to resurface every road in the country, give tax refunds to every worker, reduce tax on overtime, increase children’s allowance, extend the first-time buyer scheme and introduce a second-time buyer scheme, remove exam fees for all, increase the salaries of teachers, provide free supervised transport for independent and church schools, give free public transport to students now (with free travel for pensioners and the disabled to follow), and implement the plan to have all cancer medication given free.

This budget is another step forward in Labour’s roadmap that is changing our country for the better. The economic success that is acknowledged by all credit rating agencies did not come by chance. This administration has made it an utmost priority to be efficient with public monies. The budget is no longer a list of expenses, but a set of carefully devised investments that will yield even more economic growth. The government is convinced that with the current plan and fiscal responsibility we will have a budget surplus for the next five years. The worst thing one could do now is to go on a spending spree and implement measures the country could not afford long term. It would be very easy for any government to use a surplus for immediate political returns to ensure popularity. But this government is ensuring the surplus is being used as a tool of social justice, creating the infrastructure required to deliver prosperity for tomorrow’s generations.