A new government must ensure that a culture of accountability is introduced, Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association president Tony Zahra has said.
“In Malta, we don’t have the culture of ‘the head is responsible’. We can no longer remain in this situation in which nobody is responsible,” he told a press conference in which he unveiled the association’s electoral proposals.
The proposals have been submitted to both the Nationalist and the Labour parties during separate meetings.
“At the end of the meetings we even gave them a CD so that they can just cut and paste our proposals onto their manifestos without having to retype them,” he joked.
The tourism industry, Mr Zahra said, made up 30 per cent of Malta’s gross domestic product. It was important that a newly-elected government involved key industry stakeholders in decision-making processes.
He said the biggest problem for the tourism industry over the past five years had been Air Malta. When asked whether he was satisfied with the ongoing reform at the airline, he replied: “I feel we could be doing more.”
Mr Zahra called on the Government to urgently cut bureaucracy within its structures.
“We need to review and update the processes relating to how the country is governed,” he said.
It was also time to remove responsibility for Enemalta from the Government and delegate it to an “independent technocrat body”. This would ensure it was no longer used as a political football.
“Let’s get the best brains of Malta to run this sector. We just want efficiency so that we can be competitive,” he said.
While the tourism industry had done well – 2012 being a record year in terms of tourist arrivals – the expenses faced by the industry increased, he said.
The MHRA proposed increasing arrivals in winter and the shoulder months and also lowering the utility rates by four per cent.
“The new power station would mean more efficiency. In the past, we paid for the inefficiencies… this four per cent cut is calculated on this,” he said.
Mr Zahra insisted on reducing VAT for hotel accommodation from seven per cent to the original five per cent.
It was time to tackle the issue of pensions because the situation was worsening by the passage of time.
“Difficult decisions must be taken,” he said, adding that citizens should be incentivised to opt for private education, health and pension services.
He also spoke about the need to offer better support to entrepreneurs and innovators, whom he described as the people who generated the country’s wealth.
A new government should intensify its efforts to support product export, including the export of services, and invest in human resources through education and training, he said.