The statement issued by the Opposition regarding the leadership and the state of the country’s public finances is extremely selective and is intended to mislead.
This is as it quotes numbers concerning the country’s public debt without giving the economic context of our country while completely omitting the achievements that this Government has managed to achieve and through which more people in our country are enjoying increased income.
The Opposition is also misleading and deceiving when it says that this Government has denied increases to professionals in different sectors. This was the Government that this year managed to conclude a record number of collective agreements that gave the best conditions and wages ever enjoyed by workers in the public service. The allocation for the wages of public service workers this year alone increased by almost 20%.
This is in addition to the fact that public investment has reached a record level at a rate of more than 4% of gross domestic product, the best rate since our country entered the European Union.
The Opposition has also deliberately failed to mention how, thanks to the Government’s financial management, our country this year once again had the best economic growth rate in the European Union and the lowest unemployment rate in the Eurozone. Even in recent weeks, international institutions such as the IMF and the European Commission have been having to revise upwards their forecasts for our country despite the fact that this is already five times better than the European average.
A very different situation from the economic situation left by the Opposition in 2013 where the national debt was 70% of national wealth. In contrast, today this is only close to 50%.
Also very different are the achievements that this Government is achieving, including through a Budget for next year that was recently approved by the European Commission and thus another positive certificate of the management of public finances in our country. The Opposition is well aware of the importance of this as when it was in the administration of the country, its budget was sent back by the Commission with instructions to take austerity measures to make up for the mismanagement of public finances.
Unlike this year in a Budget re-approved by the European Commission, this Government has delivered the largest increases in history in Children’s Allowance and pensions. This is in addition to a strong boost in new benefits introduced by this administration itself, such as the Carer’s Grant and the Additional Cost of Living Benefit.
