Malta's Labour Party Highlights Island's Fiscal Problems

by Lorys Charalambous, Tax-News.com, Cyprus

29 October 2001

The Malta Labour Party (MLP) held its Extraordinary General Conference last week to discuss proposals in a document drafted by the Party to modernise its manifesto on fiscal issues.

At the Conference, Party spokesman for financial and economic matters, Leo Brincat, lamented over why he thought Malta's financial position needed improvement and cited problems such as the recent reduction in foreign trade, cashflow issues, problems at the Cyprus Stock Exchange, tax hikes and the increasing deficit as well as public debt.

Mr Brincat said: 'This document is not an electoral manifesto or an action plan. These are guidelines of what we, as a party, should do, such as reconsider withholding tax, promise not to introduce taxes between budgets, boost manufacturing, give due importance to statistics... The statistics authority should fall under the responsibility of parliament, like the ombudsman, and not under a minister.'

He added: 'There is a big difference between our stand on the yards and that of the government: we would cap subsidies at an acceptable level - after consultation, not phase them out completely. Just because we are taking part in the task force (set up by the government) does not mean we agree with everything.'

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