Updated | Cardona insists on meeting all Monti hawkers to discuss relocation

A meeting with the minister for the economy Chris Cardona was cancelled when the government insisted that it should meet all 74 licensed Monti hawkers, instead of their representatives, to discuss their relocation.

The four representatives said they had shown Cardona’s representative Alex Farrugia, a former hawker, a statute mandating them to conduct negotiations on relocating the Monti stalls away from Merchants Street.

On Thursday they were denied a scheduled meeting in a bid to find a solution to the impasse created over their stalled relocation to Ordnance Street, Valletta. Each of the 75 stall owners have a contract signed with the minister for their relocation from Merchants' Street, but since the controversial relocation threatened to darken the new City Gate project, no alternative site was found for the hawker.

“A meeting of this level should involve all licensed sellers, which is why the meeting was postponed,” the ministry said in a statement.

“This relocation is a sensitive matter that involves various economic operators, and the ministry wants to carry out this process cautiously and safeguard everybody’s interest. So it is crucial that all stakeholders collaborate so that a solution is found that safeguards the Monti tradition, raises consumer standards, and does not prejudice any other economic operator.”