Employers who have for close to a year been contributing to the Maternity Leave Trust Fund have yet to receive refunds for the wages they have paid out.

Malta Employers Association director general Joe Farrugia said employers had been paying their contributions since July 6 of last year and yet they have not received any of the refunds promised.

Employers across the board contribute the equivalent of 0.3 per cent of the basic pay for every employee, irrespective of their gender, to build up the fund. They should then be refunded for the wages paid to employees who take the 14-week maternity leave they are entitled to.

Earlier last week, the association called on the government to address the issue, saying that despite the legislation being in place since last year, the employers were still in the dark as to when they would be receiving the refunds as it seemed there was no system in place yet.

“We have been in contact with both the Finance Ministry as well as the Maternity Leave Trust Fund board to try and resolve the issue as soon as possible.

“However, we are being told that there are some pending issues that need to be tackled before any refunds are handed out,” the director general said.

Another instance where measures are introduced without any thought given to implementation

Asked what these pending issues were, Mr Farrugia said the problem irking employers most was that they had not been given any information.

“It seems as though there is no system in place yet. There are no claim forms for the employers or even some guidelines to help them understand what is going on,” he said, adding that the ministry had indicated there were also some problems with computation issues that still needed to be straightened out.

Employers, he went on, were also complaining about the fact that until they were issued refunds, they were paying double: paying their employees full pay during maternity leave as well the percentage going into the fund.

“This is very unfair. These things should have been addressed before the legislation came into force and not a year later. This is another instance where measures are introduced without any thought being given to their implementation,” Mr Farrugia said.

While the director general said the association had been in contact with both the ministry and the board recently, contacted for a reaction to the claims a spokesman for the Finance Ministry said that all matters to do with the fund fell within the remit of the board.

“The government set up a trust whose board’s majority membership are the employers organisations’ representatives. The trust has the sole responsibility to manage the Maternity Fund. It is they who have to explain why the trust is not refunding the wages,” the spokesman said.

Questions sent to the Maternity Leave Trust Fund Board were not answered by the time of writing.