Social partners were positive about Malta’s economic outlook but the government had to control “dragons” limiting economic growth, including energy tariffs, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna was told yesterday.

Speaking at a meeting with the social partners, Joseph Falzon, a consultant for the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development, listed the “dragons” ahead of the presentation of the Budget next month.

These include lack of skilled workers and adequate education. “Our education system has failed our students,” he said, adding that the second “dragon” was energy costs. While the government had reduced energy tariffs, the social partners were calling for more measures to maintain competitiveness.

The other “dragons” include a high cost of finance, government service inefficiency and traffic, which was costing many man hours and creating frustration. Earlier, he said the social partners had expressed concern about the exports sector, which he described as the engine of the economy.

The social partners submitted a total of 437 proposals and suggestions over the past weeks and Prof. Scicluna said yesterday the purpose of the meeting was to hear what they had to say.

About energy cuts, he said Enemalta had been restructured, however, it was still in a state of convalescence and part of the tariffs had to be used to pay the accumulated debt.

Prof. Scicluna said Budget targets were becoming more ambitious but the government had to ensure that all measures were well funded. He said the Individual Investor Programme was not an exit route and only a third of the funds deriving from it would be used in the Budget.

The GWU’s Tony Zarb at yesterday’s meeting.

Proposals from the social partners

GRTU CEO Abigail Mamo

The GRTU, as expected, reiterated its call for a further reduction in energy costs for businesses.

On improving access to finance, Ms Mamo said that according to a recent Central Bank report, while interests on savings had decreased to one per cent, the interest on lending had remained at five per cent.

The GRTU proposed alternative sources of financing, such as crowd-funding.

It also suggested “aggressive measures” to create shifts in traffic patterns. Taking a holistic approach, Ms Mamo said traffic and parking problems wasted time for business people, consumers and workers.

“There should be incentives so that segments of people – delivery reps, students and workers, among others – would go out on the streets at different times, even during off-peak hours.

Positive incentives, such as carpooling and informing Valletta-goers whether there is available parking in the capital through what is known as street monitoring, could also decease traffic.

GWU general secretary Tony Zarb

Cuts in the utility bills did not feature in the GWU’s list of proposals because the union, which was not against such a reduction, needed to see how this would impact Enemalta. The GWU was looking at the whole picture, Mr Zarb said.

The union’s proposals, instead, called for the strengthening of the manufacturing sector. Proper training was required so that when people applied for a job they would have the required skills.

Mr Zarb called for a climate that encouraged producers to export. Unlike other European countries, Malta had a drawback: having to cross over by sea or air to export products. The GWU also called for a guarantee that the minimum pension would not be less than 60 per cent of the national median income for those born after 1962.

UĦM general secretary Josef Vella

Energy cuts were not on the UĦM’s list either as it felt that bills should reflect international prices.

­­This was one of its long-term stands and not one expressed when the Budget was nearing.

The union felt it should focus on the issue of second-pillar pensions. Society was changing and people did not save up anymore, so dependency on the State would increase once people reached retirement age. A culture of savings could be introduced through the second-pillar pension system, he insisted.

It also took a stand on precarious work. Although there had been attempts to tackle this, the UĦM was proposing setting up templates of work contracts, in line with Maltese law. Employers would be obliged to use one of these contract templates and prospective employees can access them online if they needed to refer to the contract conditions but did not have a hard copy.

Another suggestion was considering entering into a private public partnership with workers’ cooperatives. This would, however, require some amendments, such as reducing the number of people required to form a cooperative from five to three, as in Italy.