It was not acceptable for the government to continue increasing excise on diesel when Maltese enterprises were paying around 30c more for every litre of oil, the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises, GRTU, said today.

It said in a statement that although the government’s decision to lock the price of oil had been a courageous one and aimed at stabilising the situation, the price of oil had gone down instead of up and businesses were paying more.

The GRTU said that although the government had not confirmed it was increasing excise on diesel, it felt this was a probable move as the government had placed a lot of emphases on indirect taxation in the draft Budget plan.

The GRTU also said that one of the its priorities for this budget was for the government to revise commercial vehicle licences, the cost of which had increased drastically in the last budget.

Maltese enterprises, it said, were still trying to recover from these increases.

The GRTU said that the pre-Budget document was vague on taxes and it had requested a meeting with the Finance Minister to clear up such questions.

It said it preferred to be proactive and discuss rather than criticise later, when measures which would continue to hurt Maltese enterprises would have been committed.

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