Employers call for social pact

A social pact where employer bodies, unions, the government and, hopefully the opposition, would sit down, call a spade a spade and focus on solving the country's economic and social problems was an exercise in maturity and would give added scope to the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, Malta Employers' Association president Paul De Battista said.

One would expect the pact to include commitment to curb government expenditure, not to finance any added costs by increasing costs to employers, to reduce bureaucracy and to propose measures that were necessary to improve competitiveness.

"If such an agreement materialises, the social pact will be a milestone of national unity and proof that the social partners can rise to the occasion to set aside sectoral interests and address issues of national importance constructively," Mr De Battista said.

Addressing the MEA's annual general meeting Mr De Battista said the government still had to come to terms with keeping its expenditure under control to reduce the ratio of public deficit to the GDP to a targeted level of three per cent.

He said excessive bureaucracy was also a cost, as were other costs that were government-induced.

A recent example was the charges for compliance with the Data Protection Act where fees were way above those charged in other EU states. Some countries did not impose any charges at all, he said.

Other areas of concern to the MEA included the issue of illiteracy and the structure of the labour force.

He said that the public service employed 50,000 persons, around 30 per cent of the labour force, which was an excessive figure calling for a clear strategy to increase the ratio of persons employed in the private sector.

But, unfortunately, discussion on the White Paper for Public Service Reform focused too much on the conditions of employment of public service employees and not sufficiently on how the public sector could be of better service, he said.