Malta relegated to Serie B - PL spokesmen

Standard and Poor’s report yesterday shows that Malta has been relegated to Serie B, Labour MP Karmenu Vella said this morning. Addressing a news conference he said that the report was a certificate of five years of incompetence, the result of broken promises, uncertainty and indifference to warnings the government received in the past few years from, among others, the Central Bank and other credit rating agencies. Mr Vella noted that this was Malta’s second downgrade since November. The country’s debt was reducing its flexibility and it was borrowing for unproductive projects. The government was paying €250 million in interest, which amounted to 8.2 per cent of its revenue. If this went up to 10 per cent, Malta would get have downgrade. Asked whether Labour had a roadmap the repayment of Enemalta’s debt, Mr  Vella said €316 million were being paid through a special purpose vehicle over a 25-year period and the remaining €519 would be outstanding debt. Through labour’s energy plan, Enemalta would make a saving of €187 million a year, €77 million of which would be used to reduce tariffs. The rest of the savings would be used to, among others, start eliminating some of Enemalta’s...