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At a special dialogue meeting yesterday with Labour leader Alfred Sant at the Chamber of Commerce, president Victor Galea expressed frustration at the inability of political parties to seek agreement with each other.
Opening his first lines with this admonishment, Galea said that if there was to be more harmony in politics, Malta would be working “much more efficiently”.
“Our commercial community deserves much better. They deserve an environment that is stable and not uncertain, and not bureaucratic. An investors cannot be played around with every change in government and the direction taken cannot be changed drastically just because a government administration changes.”
Galea called for more political maturity and consensus on laws concerning financial services, the Business Promotion Act, and commercial licences. He said the Chamber had expressed itself on the uncertainty created by the discourses of politicians on the upcoming elections. ”We augur for a short electoral campaign. The Chamber urges our leaders to focus on improving national competitiveness, especially in terms of foreign direct investment and tourism. If the private sector is not discouraged by the uncertainty, it will be able to invest more and create more employment.”
Galea expressed his appreciation for Labour’s political courage following the decision by the Maltese to go for European Union membership, and for confirming the importance of its adherence to the eurozone.
He also said the Chamber was vocal in its criticism. ”It disagreed with government on various issues such as the eco-tax, the change in tax over property, the revision of rent laws which hasn’t yet started, the proposed code on corporate governance, excess bureacracy… the Chamber criticised the pace of reform at the ports as well as the idea to introduce price orders. We said this without any stammering.”
The Chamber’s president added that the organisation had studied Labour’s numerous consultation documents on the public sector, the economy, education, industry, the self-employed and IT.” In general the Chamber agrees with their principles. We commented on this in our previous meeting, and that what was lacking was further elaboration on the implementation of this vision, especially on costs and timeframes.” |
