I enjoyed listening to the Opposition Leader’s reply to the Finance Minister’s budget speech yesterday. Alex Borg is maturing as a politician, and he is also becoming more attuned to the economy and its structural problems.
One issue which he mentioned yesterday, and which has not been widely mentioned in the criticism of the budget, is that the newly imposed tariffs on third-country nationals will create a wage-price spiral, especially in the health sector. This is very true, and credit should be given to the Nationalist Party for warning about this. Having followed regularly the work of Finance Minister Clyde Caruana, one of the main deficiencies in his policies and work is that he rarely, if ever, takes note of contingencies. From this point, we can also infer how the Nationalist Party is diverging from Labour on fiscal and economic policy.
The comparison is also identifiable in their respective speeches. The Finance Minister gave a speech of assurance backed by government largesse. He is guaranteeing the Maltese that whatever happens, they won’t ever have to worry because the government will be backstopping any shortfall.
Although the social element is strong in the Finance Minister’s policies and speech, he is weak on the aspects of national and qualitative growth, and this is where the PN is filling the gap.
Alex Borg was very impassioned yesterday when he asserted his support for businesses, which he described as the motor of the economy, with their dreams and ambitions. This was very encouraging and uplifting, which heavily contrasts with the Finance Minister’s myopic view of backstopping an unproductive and low-productivity economy.
If there was anyone in Parliament who has encouraged animal spirits to take risks in the Maltese economy, it is Alex Borg. Clyde Caruana is simply promising assurance come what may, giving off vibes of complacency.
Running in the same vein of national and economic expansionism, Alex Borg lambasted the government over its low-productivity economic model based on cheap labour and its dismissiveness of capital expenditure. On the latter, the Nationalist Party is making a very strong point and showing genuine concern for Malta’s structural problems, as opposed to Labour, whose economic and fiscal vision is limited to short-term gains and an electoral cycle.
The main difference is that Alex Borg is giving us hope that we are capable of greatness and of solving our complex problems. By contrast, Clyde Caruana is propagating a sense of complacency, dismissiveness, sloth, and mediocrity.
I think this is the first time that the Nationalist Party is taking on finance and the economy in a very serious way, as opposed to its general election mantra of claiming to be able to do the same thing as Labour, but just better.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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