GRTU Requests Compensation

GRTU contends that these arrangements were imposed irrispective of the damage and business loss caused to many private business outlets.

GRTU – Malta Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises recognized from the very beginning that the Commonwealth Summit would give a great opportunity to Malta to present its economic commercial, financial as well as its touristic and logistic potential to a very wide international audience. GRTU gave its full support to this initiative and encouraged its members and the sectors it represents to give their maximum endeavour to ensure the greatest success.

We take this opportunity to congratulate all those who have worked to make this event a success. We participated fully in the Commonwealth Business Forum and we are very satisfied with the way this Conference was organized. Our only regret is that too few Maltese businesspersons realized the potential of this important encounter and how important it is for Maltese entrepreneurs, large and small, to seek opportunities beyond the limited confines of the Maltese internal market.

Allow us, however to make one important complaint. GRTU, feels extremely aggrieved at the grossly unjust way that traders and entrepreneurs in general were treated by the authorities when it came to traffic arrangements. The arrangements were made without consultations with GRTU and often in complete disregard of the financial and commercial negative impact certain decisions were leaving on many businesses. Supporting a national event of importance is one thing, but causing entrepreneurs to suffer excessive losses unnecessarily is something else, especially when many situations could have been remedied. It is with regret that we tell you that the complete lack of consultation on traffic arrangements with GRTU as representative of businesses in the localities was a tremendous mistake and once again the system exhibited an absolutism that should have been buried together with our colonial past. Security should not be used as an excuse irrespective of the financial loss that private investors are made to suffer.

GRTU now requests Government to seek a fair remedy. Government should vote funds for the compensation of losses suffered through the imposition of bureaucratic decisions caused by CHOGM. The event was advantageous to the community at large, but individuals should not be made to carry a disproportionate burden simply because they fell victims of bureaucratic imposition. Your Government and Party adhere strongly to this principle. Kindly now put this in action in this particular circumstance.

As soon as the principle is accepted and the procedures for execution discussed and agreed with us, GRTU will present to you the claims of our members who have suffered unacceptable losses due to the arrangements, justified or not, imposed by others on them.

We thank you.