Labour leadership candidate Marie Louise Coleiro Preca yesterday again insisted on the need for a task force to monitor international movements in food and fuel prices and propose measures to mitigate their effects on consumers. Speaking after a visit to the Żebbuġ market, Mrs Coleiro Preca said that many hawkers were telling her that people were buying less despite the competitive prices they were offering.

While she admitted that it was positive that the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development would be meeting to discuss the rise in the prices of food and fuel, such a meeting was not enough to ensure that the higher costs would not have a negative impact on Maltese and Gozitan families.

She urged the government to strengthen the Office of Fair Trade to ensure that honest businessmen would be able to work and receive a fair profit. This office would ensure that consumers really benefitted from competition but it had to have the necessary resources for its work to be proactive rather than reactive.

Mrs Coleiro Preca also visited a secondary school students' fair organised by the Scoops Cooperatives. She praised the initiatives taken by several secondary school heads in Malta and Gozo to set up Scoops. She remarked that this was a very positive initiative which helped create an entrepreneurial culture, fair trade, cooperation and solidarity from a young age.