Three years after election, Labour on course to implement 76% of its manifesto

The government is on course to implement three-quarters of its electoral manifesto, three years into the legislature, Carmelo Abela said.

The minister responsible for the implementation of government’s electoral manifesto said 312 of the 722 electoral proposals were fully implemented, while work on another 242 pledges was at an advanced stage.

He was speaking on the third anniversary of the Labour Party’s re-election to government in the 2017 general election.

Abela said there was an uptick of 8% in the implementation of electoral pledges between January and March.

The government ground to an almost complete halt in the last two months of last year when it was rocked by accusations that people in Castille may have been involved in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The political turmoil led to Joseph Muscat’s resignation and the election of Robert Abela as prime minister in January.

Carmelo Abela was appointed minister within the Office of the Prime Minister last January and part of his responsibilities included overseeing the implementation of the electoral manifesto.

Abela said there were 168 proposals that were less than half way through their implementation.

“This is the first government that has ensured its programme is based on the electoral manifesto… this is a government that has stuck to its electoral pledges and not forgotten them once in power,” Abela said.

He said his ministry’s role was to monitor the implementation of the manifesto by analysing monthly reports submitted by the different ministries and coordinating any work that had to be done to get things going.

Abela listed a number of measures that were implemented over the past three years, and others on which work had already started, including free school transport, tax refunds to all workers, social housing projects, the law on marriage equality, liberalising IVF, giving 16-year-olds the right to vote and ensuring healthcare service remained free while registering improvements.

Asked whether the government was in a position to ensure that social housing units will be ready by the end of the legislature, Abela said the commitment was to have a number of units ready.

“There are 1,700 units being built… this government inherited no stock of social housing units and the rhythm of works has picked up and will continue in earnest to start delivering,” he said.