PN question why police, student, chimney proposals scrapped from final Budget

The original Budget plan had included several positive measures that weren’t included in the final version, the Nationalist Party pointed out.

Addressing a press conference, Opposition MPs Beppe Fenech Adami, Paula Mifsud Bonnici and Marthese Portelli said that the Budget working document that the government had tabled in Parliament by mistake included plans for further police investment, the dismantling of the Delimara power station chimney and a €800 raise in grants to Gozitan university students that didn’t make the final cut.

Fenech Adami said that the Budget working document had proposed a significant increase investment in police equipment and infrastructure and a strong boost in police presence in popular touristic zones – neither proposal of which made the final Budget speech.

“Not only has Joseph Muscat decided to give a little to the public and plenty to people close to him in next year’s Budget, but he had actually removed proposals that would have given a little more to the public,” he said.

Mifsud Bonnici pointed out that the original document had proposed a raise in Gozitan university students’ grants by €800 a year, whereas the final Budget speech only granted them a €300 grant increase.

Moreover, the original working document made no mention of the budgetary measure that requires people born after 1968 to pay 41 years of social contribution to be eligible for a state pension, rather than the current 40 years.

Portelli said that the original document had included a proposal whereby the private sector would be allowed to make use of additional capacity in the Malta-Sicily interconnector. The proposal to dismantle the Delimara chimney as part of the ongoing LNG gas power station project also failed to make the final cut.

‘Budget speech the true Budget’

In parliament, Speaker Anglu Farrugia ruled that the Budget speech delivered by finance minister Edward Scicluna on Monday was the correct Budget for next year, prompting Scicluna to table the correct Budget document.

The ruling was made following a request by Opposition leader Simon Busuttil.

During parliamentary question time, Opposition MP Kristy Debono questioned civil liberties minister Helena Dalli why a working document proposal to set up an outreach programme for LGBTIQ students who are bullied at school failed to make the final cut.

However, Dalli refused to answer as the question wasn’t directly related to Debono’s original written parliamentary question.

“I have never received a single complaint from the LGBTIQ sector with regards the government’s stance to their civil rights,” she claimed. “Indeed, they have praised us for giving them legal rights such as civil unions that previous Nationalist administrations had denied them.

“Malta is now ranked as the most LGBTIQ-friendly country in Europe.”