€300 million of national debt incurred by PN administration, says government

Government has claimed that a large part of the €372 million national debt recorded during 2013 was accumulated during the first three months of the year, under the previous adminstration.

“For as long as this administration has been in charge of public funds, the national debt has only increased by 72 million,” a statement issued by government read. “This is a fact which (Opposition leader) Simon Busuttil cannot deny.”

Citing Eurostat figures issued yesterday by the European Union, in which Malta’s national deficit was recorded as having decreased by 0.5% from 3.3% to 2.8% on last year, government said that Busuttil was choosing to ignore the statistic.

“Instead of receiving this good news in the right manner, Busuttil is instead trying belittle it,” government said. “This is despite the fact that these figures were scrutinised by some of the European Commission’s leading experts.”

Government said that Busuttil’s insistence that the Nationalist administration did not oversee a high national debt level were far from the truth.

“Eurostat figures indicate that the national debt increased by 7% last year, whilst in the fifteen years of a Nationalist government, the national debt increased by 165%, or €3 billion,” it said, adding that in 9 of those years the national debt was as much if not more than that of 2013.

Government said that a “substantial amount” of national debt in 2013 was accumulated under the previous administration in the first few months of the year. “What was supposed to be a caretaker administration ended up generating a fiscal deficit of €107 million.”

“This was the biggest financial deficit the country has seen since the first quarter of 2008, which also happened to coincide with an election campaign,” it said. “Consequently, the national debt grew from €4.9 billion at the end of 2012 to €5.2 billion by March 2013.”