‘Nice euro-speak’ on bureaucracy not enough – GRTU boss
Small businesses are an unhappy lot after the Budget, according to the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU. In a lament on excessive bureaucracy that is stifling various sectors represented by his organisation, GRTU director general Vince...
Small businesses are an unhappy lot after the Budget, according to the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU.
In a lament on excessive bureaucracy that is stifling various sectors represented by his organisation, GRTU director general Vince Farrugia said he wanted concrete action in the battle against excessive bureaucracy rather than government’s “nice euro-speak” about small and micro firms.
“The government has belatedly published a Small Business Act that includes all the right principles but is months if not years away from serious implementation,” Mr Farrugia told The Sunday Times, insisting that Cabinet had to take this matter seriously.
“There is great discontent over the way Finance Minister Tonio Fenech treated our package of Budget proposals. I am not sure anyone bothered to read them,” he said.
While agreeing with the government’s strategy to reduce the deficit, the GRTU is angry because the micro-credit scheme promised last year has still not materialised and the organisation’s proposal for a credit guarantee scheme wide enough to include many projects undertaken by micro and small firms was ignored.
On the individual sectors represented by the GRTU, Mr Farrugia said petrol station owners were being requested to reapply for the licences they held for three generations, and claims related to their profit margin from fuel prices remain unsettled.
The future of gas distributors was cloudy, he said, as the government disregarded the commitment to guarantee their licence and the territory in which they operate even after privatisation. This meant the government was now being faced with a claim of €12 million for breach of contract.
Middlemen were unilaterally locked out from the abattoir, he added, by the Rural Affairs Ministry, and beef slaughtering was at a standstill.
“Again, it is as if nothing is happening,” he added.
Mr Farrugia also lamented the fact that no decision was taken on the parking problem in Valletta, which got worse with the start of the City Gate regeneration project.
“The determination is simply not there. The decision-making process remains heavy, slow and prejudiced against micro and small business owners. After the bad taste of this non-event and mediocre Budget I seriously ask what is wrong with this government,” Mr Farrugia said.