Pitkalija reforms ‘intended to stop abuse’

A recent pitkalija reform is intended to stop abuse and introduce more transparency and accountability, the agriculture parliamentary secretariat said in a statement.

“We don’t intend to remove the pitkala, but ensure that they follow the regulations that were introduced to safeguard farmers,” the secretariat said in a statement.

The Pitkala Association filed a judicial protest on Saturday, calling on Agriculture Parliamentary Secretary Roderick Galdes to revoke a recently-imposed obligation on pitkali market fruit and vegetable traders to provide a bank guarantee.

According to a legal notice issued in January 2014, “every pitkal who applies for the renewal of a licence after the 31st day of December of 2014 shall provide a bank guarantee, equivalent to 10% of his previous year’s turnover from the sales of agricultural produce. “
The association claimed that due to the fact that whoever does not provide this bank guarantee will not be allowed to operate, the measure constitutes a change in their licence conditions. 
“Several vendors genuinely lack the financial means to be granted the necessary guarantee and this measure may result in some of them ceasing to trade,” the association said.
It described the unilateral change as “unacceptable and quasi-despotic,” pointing out that the guaranteed amount should have been based on the commission individual pitkala received and not on their gross income, as was the case.
The most serious worry, however, was “[Galdes’] attitude, as he was hardly ever available for discussions”, adding that when discussions would take place, the parliamentary secretary would react by doing the opposite to what had been agreed.

Galdes’ parliamentary secretariat rebutted that that Galdes had held frequent meetings with pitkala traders.

“The bank guarantee will ensure that pitkala honour their financial obligations to farmers,” the secretariat said. “The pitkala are well aware that the bank that used to offer such guarantees in the past stopped doing so because some pitkala had fallen behind in their payments to farmers, with some pending amounts having gone up to hundreds of thousands of euro. This had threatened the pitkalija transaction system.”

‘Sales to Housewives’ scheme stopped

The secretariat added that pitkali will no longer be able to sell directly to housewives after discovering that hotels and food establishments were abusing the scheme. 

“Farmers had complained that some pitkala had told them that some food products would be thrown away, before selling them to establishments without compensating the farmers," the secretariat said.