The Parliamentary Secretary for Animal Welfare, Roderick Galdes, this morning explained the reasons for the customer service review of the San Frangisk animal centre.
He said that when the Animal Hospital Project was launched by former Minister George Pullicino in 2010, the minister had said that services to the Animal Welfare Department would be provided free of charge, but that was not the case as the Animal Welfare Department was spending €80,000 each year on strays treated at the centre.
Furthermore, although charges to the pet owners and NGOs were supposed to be 'affordable' there had been complaints that they were too high.
Mr Galdes said the government wanted to face problems head on.
The review, he said, would be held by a private company over the phone among a sample of 500 people. The public would be able to comment online and through e-mails. An e-mail address and an online form will be provided at a later stage.
The press conference was held outside the centre, in spite of the repeated invitation and insistence of centre director Trevor Zammit, for it to be held inside.
Dr Zammit has filed an official letter in the first hall of the Civil Court to stop the review.
Mr Galdes said that several meetings had been held with the relative non-governmental organisations and it was evident that the prices being requested for services were too high.
The government, he said, wanted the centre to be sustainable but affordable and it was unacceptable in a democratic society that an attempt had been made to stop the review.
Mr Galdes said that the government had signed the 10-year hospital contract in 2010 and it did not include fixed prices. Asked if the government would be imposing prices in future, the Parliamentary Secretary said that one would first have to have to see what the review concluded.
An agreement for fixed fees, he said, could be reached with the operator but the government’s role was to ensure that it the centre accessible as had been originally promised.
See also PN questions on the review.
CENTRE OPERATOR EXPLAINS ITS POSITION
In a statement in the afternoon, the operator of the centre said that his primary objective was to provide a professional 24-hour service to the public and the Animal Welfare Department, as stipulated in its contract and in line with the contract clauses and conditions.
The organisation involved considerable private and unique investment in Malta and employed more than 30 people in the past two years.
The operator said that the contract stipulated that the service to the public should be at commercial rates. Although the centre tried to keep prices as low as possible, it had no control on expenses dictated by the market.
The contract also stipulated that the operator had to prove a service to state-recognised NGOs against a commercial rate, subsidised by the operator. Since the centre opened, the operator said, it was regularly used by a number of NGOs including Noah’s Arc, Tomasina Cat Sanctuary and AAA.
In spite of the subsidised rate, the operator said, Mr Galdes this morning insisted that the prices were still too high for the NGOs. The operator welcomed any price adjustment if the difference was paid by the government.
The operator said that the Animal Welfare Department was charged for medicines and other medical material used for animals it referred. This money was paid directly by the ministry.
The centre said it always ensured that whatever was included in these bills was authorised and approved by the department director before it was used.