Fenech warns electorate ‘Muscat will let you down soon after taking power’

Reacting to Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat's remarks on Budget 2013, finance minister Tonio Fenech warned the electorate that "Muscat want to win the election at all costs and is casting unnecessary doubts on the country's finances."

Fenech argued that Muscat missed yet another opportunity to explain his alternative proposals to govern the country, and instead chose to "create doubts on the economic and financial situation."

Replying to MaltaToday who asked for a reaction to Muscat's allegation of incorrect figures related to government entities, Fenech said that it was "more than obvious" that in the absence of any serious proposals from Muscat, he was inclined to believe that he will cry wolf when elected, and blame it all on a non-existent "huge deficit" which would prevent him from implementing the long list of electoral promises.

"I can guarantee you from now that should Muscat win the next general election, he will use any excuse to excuse himself from implementing the undeliverable," Fenech said.

The finance minister said that the European Commission has already certified that Malta's finances are in good shape, and this was confirmed this week with the shelving of the Excessive Deficit Procedure.

He said that the European Commission had seen the totality of government's expenditure and income, including the spend of all its departments and agencies, such as Mepa and local councils.

The finance minister also reacted to Muscat's criticism on tax which minimum wage earners will have to pay.

The minister said that despite criticising, Muscat still did not come out with a proposal of how he was going to correct it. "If only he was to adjust the tax bands, it would cost the country some €11 million," he said.

Fenech argued that Muscat conveniently forgot to mention that minimum wage earners will all get the highest of social benefits, starting from a €100 increase per child in children's allowance, while single minimum wage earners will earn a top-up of €25 per week when chosing to spend five hours a week of training at the ETC.

"All Muscat can do is promise, and again he talks about reducing the electricity tariffs when we all know that any investment made to change the generating systems will need to be factored in the prices," he said.

"Switching to gas to make tariffs cheaper will take at least four years, and Muscat has not come out with any concrete proposal as yet, when we are just weeks away from an election," he said.

Fenech concluded that Muscat's speech was riddled with contradictions, because on the one hand he says that he will implement the Budget - "because he has nothing prepared and we did it for him - while on the other, he still says that he will vote against the Budget, with all its consequences not only on the country as a whole, but mostly to the workers, their families, pensioners and sectors which are set to benefit from the measures announced in his Budget speech last Wednesday