Finance Minister Clyde Caruana is already being challenged over his fiscal estimates, and his estimated expenditure is so grossly inflated that it is already a very strong point of contention against a Labour government.
If potentially re-elected as Finance Minister, Clyde Caruana is going to spend the rest of his tenure defending a massively large public expenditure bill that has increased by at least up to โฌ0.5 billion in subsidies and tax incentives per year. The bill is probably much higher.
He is banking on private industry and continued tourism growth to deliver the economic returns he needs to collect enough revenue to meet his estimates and manage the deficit. He is making a very risky bet, and any fiscal conservative would not want to be in his shoes. Clyde Caruana risks either becoming a failed Peronist or a lucky and pretentious bull. Either way, he is going to forfeit any meaningful capital projects in Malta to carry out his programme. He risks leaving a legacy of massive debt with persistently high inflation.
Either way, prudence and long-term vision have long gone out of the window.
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Historian and Publisher
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