‘Opposition will present alternative vision for country in Budget reply’

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil will present an alternative vision for 2016’s Budget, deputy leader for parliamentary affairs Mario de Marco said today on Radio 101.

De Marco said that it was a first for a party in opposition to have presented a pre-budget document, and said that Busuttil will not only be analysing this year’s Budget in tomorrow’s speech in parliament, but also presenting the alternative budget and a vision for the country.

“The government boasts of its figures but is cut off form the reality facing people,” de Marco said in his criticism of the Labour budget presented last week.

“Today’s economy is not that of 10 years ago. Today’s economic growth is only fruit of those niches that former Nationalist administrations nurtured – tourism, aviation maintenance, internet gaming – but today’s Labour government has no vision to strengthen manufacturing, for example. How is this sector that employs 20,000 going to be strengthened? Why has a 50c tax been levied on tourists? Why are the Maltese paying for the government’s own inefficiencies on fuel prices that have not been reduced?”

De Marco said that fuel and energy prices had not been reduced by the government despite the reduction in the international price of oil.

“Even the GRTU said that reductions in energy prices were possible thanks to the decrease in the international price of oil, and thanks to the former Nationalist administration’s investment in the interconnector which has reduced dependence on oil,” he said.

De Marco said that while Labour’s Budget had addressed vulnerable sectors of society, he said too little had been done to truly deliver an effective boost to low-income groups.

“It is not enough to address first pillar pensions.  An incentive for people to take up private pensions has failed, and that is something that the government has chosen to ignore,” de Marco said.

“And you have low-income people who got a revision of tax bands, but who will be saving simply €2 a week, something that will make no difference to their life or lift them out of poverty.”