Small businessmen boycott euro changeover structures

The National Euro Changeover Committee is being used as a front by the government to take unilateral decisions in the run-up to the adoption of the euro, the Malta Chamber of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises - GRTU, charged yesterday.

Soon after informing Tonio Fenech, Parliamentary Secretary within the Finance Ministry, that the GRTU was withdrawing representation at the NECC yesterday morning, GRTU director general Vince Farrugia told reporters the Euro Adoption Bill published last week had never been tabled for discussion at the NECC consultative committee.

"It's a joke. There is a committee with so many structures and we get to know of certain issues from the 8 p.m. news," Mr Farrugia said.

He claimed that stakeholders were repeatedly being ignored as decisions were taken regardless of consultation.

The GRTU told Mr Fenech it was resigning from all the NECC committees it sat on because NECC's structure "killed all feedback".

Raising objections to the Euro Adoption Bill, the GRTU said this would create further bureaucracy and penalties, fuelling abuse that would further hinder business growth and slow down the economy.

"The Bill is drafted in a way that would serve as a revenue generator for the government because unavoidable fines and penalties will be inflicted. The Bill will also be conducive to the closure of businesses and suspension of licences," Mr Farrugia said.

"We cannot represent businesses and appear to be condoning a law that effectively makes businesses depend on the whim and character of the minister responsible for finance," Mr Farrugia said, adding that most members of the Cabinet would not even be short-listed if they had to apply for a chief officer's post in any private company. "This morning, Mr Fenech appealed to us to freeze our withdrawal. What is sure is that we shall not be present for meetings unless there is a serious commitment for things to change," Mr Farrugia said.

The way in which the NECC committees were being ignored was a symptom of the way in which the government was making decisions by itself and disregarding stakeholders in different areas, he claimed.

One case in point was the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development which, he said, "lacks leadership".

"The MCESD is like a classroom where social partners are given lectures from time to time. The most recent was the document justifying the surcharge which cost Lm20,000 but could have easily been written by a junior accountant in his free time," Mr Farrugia said.

When contacted, Mr Fenech rebutted the GRTU's claim that the NECC is serving as a front for unilateral government decisions.

"The government needs to consult but one should appreciate that we need to protect everyone's interests, not just those of the GRTU," Mr Fenech told The Times.

The parliamentary secretary promised that, given the GRTU's objections, he would take a close look at the mechanisms within the NECC in order to make sure that feedback given by members would effectively go through different levels.

On the accusation that the Euro Adoption Bill had been published without any consultation, Mr Fenech said the drafting process had been completed in February when the GRTU was still not represented on the NECC. "We had deadlines by when the Bill had to be drafted because we had to consult the European Central Bank, among others," Mr Fenech explained.

In any case, the Bill itself was there to enable the minister to issue legal notices and did not implement any law at this stage, he added.

"The legal notices, which will be the instruments that really matter, will definitely be up for discussion within the NECC. I suspect the GRTU tends to alarm itself unnecessarily sometimes," Mr Fenech said.

NECC chairman Joseph F. X. Zahra said he was surprised the GRTU had decided to suspend its participation on the day when the NECC and the private sector had to discuss solutions on dual pricing.

Objecting to the claim on lack of consultation, Mr Zahra said that on the dual pricing issue, the NECC had passed on draft guidelines to the pricing task force, chaired by the GRTU, as well as to the private sector committee where the association was represented. However, the GRTU had not passed on any feedback. He denied that the NECC ignored the GRTU's advice and added that the suggestions it made on the euro information campaign had been heeded.

Reacting to the comments by both Mr Fenech and Mr Zahra, a GRTU spokesman insisted that the organisation would stay away from all committees until the NECC's structures were reviewed.