The Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU – has threatened to stage a public protest unless the government amends a legal notice giving everyone the right to distribute gas.
Government either issues the amendments to the legal notice or else it’s time to take up a challenge
At a meeting yesterday, gas distributors decided to distribute cylinders supplied by both gas suppliers, Liquigas and Easygas.
Contacted after the meeting, GRTU director Joe Attard said that in October 2008, the government issued a legal notice “behind the GRTU’s back”, giving anyone the right to distribute gas.
Mr Attard said amendments to the legal notice were issued for public consultation in August and this period closed on September 7. However, a decision had not yet been taken.
“Time is up. This is testing time. Government either issues the amendments to the legal notice 249 of 2008 or else it’s time to take up a challenge. The government needs to decide,” he said.
The government is proposing a system whereby distributors may use one truck or separate trucks with one set of gas cylinders from each supplier on the same truck.
Otherwise, they can use two separate trucks with different gas cylinders on each truck, thus enabling different suppliers’customer schemes to be offered independently.
“The issue is one: the government’s complete inability to decide on what is essentially a relatively minor issue,” the GRTU said in a newsletter on the issue published last Friday.
Mr Attard said that if Liquigas uses any of its vehicles for LPG cylinder distribution, “there will be more than just protests”.
The system approved by the Fair Competition Office – a system selling gas cylinders of all suppliers, today, Liquigas (green or yellow) and Easygas (grey) – is acceptable to the GRTU. However, he said, suppliers preferred a free rein irrespective of the negative impact on the livelihood of gas distributors.
In 1992, distributors signedan agreement with EnemaltaCorporation, which was then sold to Liquigas Malta in 2009,with every gas distributor having territorial exclusivity on thedistribution of gas.
According to this agreement, every distributor was in possession of a licence for a specific area, which is automatically renewed every year.
This gave distributors territorial exclusivity to sell gas cylinders in the community, something that had been compromised by the distribution licences issued to the two suppliers.
One of the clauses of this agreement, which stipulated that they were only to sell gas cylinders provided by Liquigas, was shot down just before Christmas last year when the Commission for Fair Trading ruled that gas distributors could not be bound to sell gas of only one supplier.
Mr Attard said the distributors decided yesterday to also start distributing Easygas cylinders, in line with this decision handed down last year.
The distributors want the government to change the legal notice to honour the agreement with them and allow them to be the only ones to sell bottled gas or else pay them compensation for withdrawing their exclusive licence.
Compensation for the withdrawal of the 1992 agreement was calculated by the GRTU at about €200,000 per distributor, amounting to some €6 million.