SME Chamber President meets MDB Officials
22 April 2024
Malta Chamber of SMEs President Mr Paul Abela met MDB Chairman Leo Brincat and CEO...
Follow, Lead or Join; GRTU ready for action
04 June 2008
GRTU as active members of UEAPME, the European federation of national representative organizations representing SMEs has been on the lobbying front for five years demanding the reduction or removal of the high taxation on every litre of diesel.
GRTU in Malta has persistently raised this issue and has brought together transporters on more than one occasion threatening to get all transporters: burdnara, coaches, busses, distributors, road haulage, minibuses and waste carriers to protest publicly if Government refuses to act.
Now the pressure is again on GRTU to take the lead. This time round it won't be easy for government to keep GRTU away.
All transporters are self employed. The stiff increases in diesel prices have eaten away the self-employees' take home income irrespective of what sector they operate in. Most of them cannot simply put up prices to cover the loss of income and it's grossly unfair that all the operators continue to suffer when Government continues to benefit each time the price of diesel goes up.
It's easy arithmetic: as the price goes up and the 18% VAT is charged on the full price of diesel including government duty tax of €0.34c per litre and the profit margin of Enemalta, Government pockets in more when we suffer further dips in our pockets. GRTU believes that reason must prevail.
