A Labour government will either offer Valletta open-air market (monti) hawkers their original site in Merchants Street or else find another solution that would be acceptable for one and all, Labour leader Alfred Sant said yesterday.

Dr Sant was speaking in Freedom Square where the hawkers stationed themselves for the second day running after no agreement was reached with the government as to the site where they could set up their stalls.

Since the hawkers were told to give up Merchants Street 10 days ago to allow for embellishment work, they have not set up their stalls, refusing to relocate to St James Ditch, claiming they would lose custom. Successive meetings with the government have so far yielded no solution.

Dr Sant said that from what hawkers told him, it was apparent that solutions were possible. What was needed was the ability to seek a solution that would be beneficial to all those involved – the hawkers, the Valletta business community, the residents and the government.

He said the government was not showing signs of goodwill, and its propaganda was stifling the voice of the hawkers. The government was giving the impression that the hawkers were a group of intransigent people who did not want to accept solutions.

For its part, Dr Sant said, the MLP guaranteed the hawkers that the solutions that would be found would be acceptable to them.

In a counter-statement, the Investment, Industry and IT Ministry said the Valletta commercial organisations had agreed that the monti should be removed from the site it occupied until two weeks ago and move to the site indicated by the government.

Other organisations had also agreed that the monti should be relocated, the ministry said.

Dr Sant, without any form of consultation, had promised to relocate the monti to its old site, the ministry said.

In a separate statement, the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises said that it had regularly made it clear that the monti should not be set up in Merchants Street between Old Theatre Street and St John Street, as this caused loss of business to shops in the area.

The GRTU expressed regret that in spite of its position, the Labour leader declared his support to the status quo “without evaluating correctly what the true interest of all investors in the area is.”