The Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU has called on the government to investigate why Maltese businessmen and exporters are still paying high port tariffs notwithstanding promises that they would go down.

The chamber said that the person responsible for port reforms, Malta Maritime Authority chairman Marc Bonello was saying that tariffs had gone down when in fact they were on the rise. It was also unfair, the chamber said, to say that cargo hauliers were to blame. The chamber claimed that if Dr Bonello and the committee had negotiated a better deal, as was expected of them, businessmen would have benefited from a 35 per cent decrease in tariffs, while at the same time ensuring that port workers and the Freeport would have continued to get a fair price.

“Instead, businessmen were having to pay more than they did before,” the chamber said.

The GRTU called on the prime minister to appoint a committee to look into the matter of port tariffs because the information he was receiving was not correct… and because of this, Maltese businessmen were suffering.