The Malta Chamber of SMEs has said that in light of the current Covid-19 situation, “the government is keeping people in the dark.”

On behalf of the chamber, the Chief Executive Officer Abigail Mamo, has said that when it comes to the re-opening of non-essential shops, “all we’ve heard is speculation on what’s going to happen.”

On 10 March the government announced a number of new measures including that of keeping non-essential shops closed till 11 April. This was on the day that Malta reported a record-setting 510 cases of the virus. Almost one month later, the current situation has greatly improved as health authorities have reported Covid-19 cases below 100 for the past week but, as of yet it has not been announced whether these shops will re-open after 11 April.

As a result, The Malta Independent contacted Mamo to get a sense of what they are expecting considering the decrease in Coronavirus cases.

The Malta Chamber of SMEs has reiterated its call for the government to come up with a plan for businesses which would give them the possibility to plan ahead and move forward.

The way the government is handling things, considering that the Covid-19 numbers have been consistent, and the vaccination roll out has been a positive one, does not give a clear indication to businesses on what is going to happen.

“The way things are currently running involves the public in a frozen state, waiting for the government to make their usual Covid-19 announcement,” she said.

Mamo added that “if the government has a plan on re-opening, it should share this plan and make it public like many other European countries have done.”

“Unfortunately keeping people in the dark is something that the government has repeatedly done on a number of occasions when it comes to sharing their strategy with the public,” she said.

“The ongoing confinement has been testing the limits of entrepreneurs, self-employed and employees causing severe anxiety. Therefore, it is pertinent that the least the government can do is make their plan public to allow businesses to prepare for whatever comes and move forward with their lives.”

Mamo added that “people need to prepare themselves mentally and prepare their lives to be able to go back to action. One cannot expect that businesses bounce back from one day to the next, therefore they should be informed a week in advance on what’s going to happen.”

“We made it very clear to the government that we want a plan in order to move forward, but so far, it has not been forthcoming and although we have tried communicating with the government multiple times, this has simply resulted into a one-way communication,” she said.

Mamo further explained that “the level of economic damage the government is doing, going one day into the next without a plan is substantial. Equally worrying would be if the government had a plan that it is keeping to itself. It has an obligation to communicate its economic plans and inform social partners of what this plan is. This is not just for the sake of transparency but also because the government cannot think that businesses can survive without any visibility, and that any economic reform can take place without the government and without social partners being involved.”