If the government wants to renege on the guarantees it gave self-employed customs and transport agents (burdnara) during the EU membership negotiations, then it should make its position clear and not have allowed the Malta Maritime Authority chairman to make sweeping statements, said GRTU director-general Vince Farrugia yesterday.

Speaking at a press conference on the subject of port reforms, Mr Farrugia said that MMA chairman Marc Bonello had been reported as saying that the customs and transport agent business would be liberalised and the 113 licence holders would therefore be excluded from the system.

“Mr Bonello cannot go public and make sweeping statements like that without the government’s authority. It is clear that, during the negotiations for EU accession, this sector was addressed and the EU had agreed that we could cap the number of licences issued to a maximum of 113. We have to confirm that the Cabinet have not had a change of heart,” he said.

Mr Farrugia said the chamber felt it should have been consulted on the ports liberalisation issue and it was unfair to leave its members out of the discussions. Now, he said, the MMA was indicating that the new port operator would apparently be carrying out all handling work and thus the self-employed customs and transport agents would end up without work. This would affect over 800 jobs.

“The government is saying that port charges will be cheaper, but this is not the case because instead of a liberalised market, we will now have a monopoly,” he said.

“We are asking the government to tell us whether it is going back on what was agreed on this matter before the EU referendum.”

Mr Farrugia said it was unacceptable for the MMA chairman to make statements without consulting anybody. The GRTU will be meeting Communications and Competitive-ness Minister Censu Galea tomorrow, as well as PN MEP Simon Busuttil he said.

“We have adopted all the EU safety measures at our ports and our members have invested thousands of liri in equipment to do their job. It is totally unacceptable that they be sidelined when all the other port workers were consulted and the government gave in to their demands,” he said.