A unit is to be set up to carry out what has been described as a spending review in all government ministries. At the same time, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna appears all set to start tackling the task of cutting unnecessary expenditure and bring about greater efficiency in public spending.
All this is well and good, considering that, according to the new estimates, Malta ended the last financial year with a deficit higher than the three per cent threshold allowed by the European Union.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said his government had been expecting this. But the good news was, he noted, when announcing the revised deficit figure, that they would not be complaining about the situation “but we’ll say how we’ll move forward”.
So, given this foreknowledge, the country’s minuscule size and, also, today’s difficult economic situation, did it make sense for the Government to appoint the largest and most expensive Cabinet Malta has ever had?
Many would argue that it does not, but, in its attempt to justify the move, the Government has argued that the country’s administrative structures work differently to that in other countries and that, ultimately, what counts most is the ‘value...
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