mt SURVEY
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 NOVEMBER 2024
Finance Minister passes exam with flying colours
CLYDE Caruana has passed the budget
test with flying colours, obtaining a mean
score of 3.1 out of five in MaltaToday's
budget survey.
This comes on the back of a budget
that introduced a significant income
tax cut and a generous increase in Chil-
dren's Allowance, among other social
measures. It is an improvement over the
score of 2.9 Caruana obtained last year.
Respondents were asked to rate the
performance of the Finance Minister
between 0 (very bad) and 5 (very good).
Significantly, Caruana is given a pass
mark by all categories of respondents
including current PN voters (2.5), third
party voters (2.5) and current non-vot-
ers (2.9). Caruana's score increases to 4
among current Labour voters.
However, Caruana is slightly more ap-
preciated by males (3.2) than by females
(3) and by over 65-year-olds (3.3) than
by 16- to 35-year-olds (3). A regional
breakdown shows Caruana's score in
the range between 2.9 in the Northern
region and 3.4 in the South-eastern re-
gion.
A breakdown of results by educational
attainment of respondents shows Caru-
ana's score ranging between 2.9 among
the tertiary educated and 3.6 among
those with a primary level of education.
Caruana's ratings across all categories
are a notch higher than last year.
This was Caruana's third budget pres-
entation of this legislature and the
fourth since becoming finance minister
in November 2020.
