News • 30 March 2003

Sant persists in not taking questions

By Kurt Sansone

In complete contrast with the press conferences held during the week, Labour leader Alfred Sant yesterday did not announce any incentives for industry during the morning press conference, opting to focus his speech on the need to dismantle the Malta Enterprise Board.

Sant chose not to take questions from most of the journalists present perpetuating an unorthodox way of holding a press conference. The Labour leader only took four questions, two of them from Super One journalists.

Sant also avoided answering a direct question by a NET TV journalist, who queried the Labour leader about an event organised by the MLP for industrialists to which only some 100 people turned up, from a total of 300 invited.

Flanked by John Attard Montalto and Gozo candidate Joe Cordina, Sant reiterated that under a Labour government industry would have to compete in the context of a free trade area with the European Union. However, he insisted that the agro-industry would still be protected.

Hitting out at government’s project to set up the Malta Enterprise Board, which seeks to unite three separate entities – IPSE, MDC and METCO - Sant said that the structure was not suited for Malta’s context.

He said a Labour government would retain the present system whereby the three entities would work autonomously.

Without elaborating, Sant said that the MDC would be geared to attract foreign investment from Europe, the United States and North Africa.

Sant admitted that an incentive scheme launched between 1996 and 1998 for companies to recruit young workers and those over 40 did not work as expected. He added that a new Labour government would revamp the scheme and put an emphasis on training programmes to alleviate unemployment among the young and those over 40 years of age.

Speaking before Sant, MP John Attard Montalto defended the track record of the brief Labour administration between 1996 and 1998 saying that industry was in a shambles when it took over. Attard Montalto repeated more than once that the state industry was in had nothing to do with the Labour government’s decision to freeze Malta’s EU application.

Attard Montalto mentioned a number of companies including ST, Brandstatter, Dowty and Carlo Gavazzi, that were given a new lease of life because of decisions taken by the Labour administration.

Candidate Joe Cordina, reading from a script, spoke about the importance small enterprises have for Gozo’s economy and how the Nationalist administration abandoned the sister island.