University Of Malta’s Budget Slashed By €1.1 Million As Part Of Cost-Cutting Exercise, Email Shows
The University of Malta’s recurrent budget for this year has been slashed by €1.1 million as part of a government cost-cutting exercise, an alleged email sent by Rector Alfred Vella and shared by Shadow Education Minister Justin Schembri shows.
“As you may have heard over the media, the government is currently cutting back on its expenditure. To this effect, we have received official communication that our recurrent budget for this year has been reduced by €1.1 million,” the email sent to deans, institute directors, administrative directors and heads of department reads.
“As one may readily appreciate, this is a significant amount given that most of our budget is committed to salaries (85%) and essential services (10%) such as utilities, cleaning, periodical subscriptions and software licenses.”
“Not much will be left over to manoeuvre various other needs or improvements.”
The email adds that there are indications that next year’s budget allocation will remain at the same post-cut level, meaning that the university’s estimated recurrent budget reduction will increase to €3 to €5 million when taking into account salary increases and inflation on other products.
It also warns that a reduction is expected in the research budget, although this has not been confirmed.
“If it transpires, we may have to rethink the amounts and the method to adopt in order to sustain the research clusters we were about to launch in the coming months in order to ensure that we can sustain them in the coming years,” the email reads.
“Together with the finance team and other directorates, we are looking at different ways which will eventually be discussed with academic leaders of faculties and other entities. This is not just about cutting back on expenditure but also of finding ways to augment the university’s income in order to be able to balance things out with minimum disruption.”
“We will be keeping you updated with all developments and discussing with you the measures that may need to be taken.”
PN education spokesperson Justin Schembri criticised the government for “wasting money while denying the University the necessary operational and research funds”.
“In its budget, they told us that this is the ‘Malta we want for our children’ but this was just propaganda of a lying government that doesn’t truly care about our children. The government has decided to turn the University of Malta into beggars.”
Earlier this year, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana confirmed that the government is analysing what costs it can cut in an effort to bring down the national deficit and improve the sustainability of the energy subsidies it launched in response to the global inflation crisis.
Lovin Malta has asked the University for a response to this alleged email and whether the “measures” mentioned by the Rector could involve staff, salary or course cuts.
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