📋 Tender Overview
The statement issued by the Opposition regarding the management and state of the countrys public finances is extremely selective while it is intended to mislead. This is as it quotes numbers concerning the countrys 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 higher incomes. The Opposition is also misleading and deceptive 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 that workers in the public service have ever had. 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 Governments 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 had 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 that the Opposition left 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 knows well 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 in order to make up for the mismanagement of public finances. Unlike this year in a Budget approved again by the European Commission, this Government has delivered the largest increases in history in the Childrens Allowance and in pensions. This is in addition to a strong strengthening in new benefits that were introduced by this administration itself, such as the Carers Grant and the Additional Benefit against the Cost of Living.
