No gas cylinders are being distributed this morning following strike action ordered by the GRTU yesterday, and distributors have gathered near the production plant at Qajjenza, awaiting instructions.

The GRTU said it would be meeting Resources Minister George Pullicino later today and hoped to reach agreement.

GRTU director-general Vince Farrugia explained that the dispute was not with Liquigas or Easygas but with the government, which had repeatedly assured the distributors that their licences for door-to-door distribution of gas would be observed, even when the provision of LPG gas was liberalised. Therefore, he insisted, they should be able to distribute the gas products of both companies.

The government, he said, had breached this contract through licences awarded to the companies, and it seemed that Liquigas did not want distributors to sell products of both companies.

Should that continue to be the case, the distributors would continue to demand compensation from the government.

The GRTU said it was pointless to speak to the Malta Resources Authority on this issue. The MRA had granted the licences to the two companies without reference to previous arrangements made by the government, and it was now up to the governemnt to solve the problem which the MRA had created.

The GRTU said it would order distributors back to work as soon as arrangements on the way forward were agreed, as had been done in the case of petrol stations earlier this week.