Social partners sitting on the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development yesterday agreed to draw up proposals on how the government could ease the burden on families caused by the water and electricity surcharge and the general increase in prices.

Parliamentary Secretary for Public Dialogue Chris Said said that, following a request by the General Workers' Union, the social partners agreed to discuss the surcharge and the rise in inflation and draft proposals on how to reduce the impact they are having on families and small businesses.

Their individual proposals will be submitted to the chairman of the council who will then pass them on to the government.

The power surcharge was this week raised to 95 per cent from the previous level of 50 per cent while the cost of fuel at the pump has also gone up significantly and food inflation hit 10 per cent over the past year.

Mr Said said the government was willing to listen to the social partners' views and will take decisions following discussions at an MCESD level.

Clearly reacting to complaints about lack of consultation on such measures, Mr Said explained that social partners twice had the opportunity to follow presentations on the increase in the price of oil on the international market and measures the Enemalta Corporation was taking to buy oil in advance.

On May 23, they had listened to a presentation by the then chief executive officer of the corporation, David Spiteri Gingell, and again on June 6 they followed another presentation by Enemalta chairman Alex Tranter.

Mr Said said the social partners knew about the constant increase in the price of oil and also about the drastic revision which would have to be made to the surcharge due to this increase.

He said that way back in 2005, when the surcharge was introduced, the social partners had agreed to the mechanism to calculate the surcharge and it had been in use ever since.

Replying to a direct question on the matter, Mr Said said in the past three years the social partners were never informed about the exact percentage before it was made public.

With regard to the planned revision of the water and electricity tariffs, which would also include the surcharge, Mr Said said the government is committed to consulting the social partners on this issue and will discuss its options with them.

During yesterday's meeting, the social partners also discussed the White Paper published by the government last week on the reform to the rent laws. Addressing them, Social Policy Minister John Dalli said that the government had presented its ideas on how it believed the reform should be conducted and it would now be using the feedback it received to update, change and improve on its suggestions.

The government wanted this to be a real dialogue and it was interested to know what everyone thought about the matter. "We want to be as fair as possible in the context of what is possible and what the country can afford... Everyone has to bear in mind that anything given by the government has to come from the people's taxes."

The government, the minister said, was receiving a lot of suggestions and it was replying to everyone. It seemed that people were finally understanding that a reform was required and he promised that the government would give consideration to all the suggestions before taking its final decision and moving a Bill for consideration by Parliament. He offered to meet the social partners individually if need be.

On this matter, Mr Said said the social partners agreed to draw up their proposals within four weeks so that they could be discussed at MCESD level. He said the proposed reforms were received positively.