Sea Malta political bickering 'harmed' investment

Investments Minister Austin Gatt harstly criticised former Sea Malta chairman Marlene Mizzi yesterday as he distributed 600 pages of reports to the media to prove that the privatisation of the national shipping line was above board.

Dr Gatt said the political bickering surrounding the sale of Sea Malta had harmed Malta and potential foreign investment.

Last Friday, Atlantica SpA di Navigazione initialled an agreement to buy the Government's 69 per cent shares in Sea Malta, capping a year of tough negotiations and contro-versy.

Dr Gatt warned, however, that a failure by the General Workers Union to reach a deal with Atlantica would effectively mean that Sea Malta would have to close down and all the workers laid off. The Government had no intention of subsidising it further, he emphasised.

During a news conference yesterday, Dr Gatt accused Ms Mizzi of having done her utmost to sabotage the privatisation of Sea Malta.

The minister accused Ms Mizzi of trying to inflate the importance of Sea Malta in the local economy, when the company had been losing money since 1998, accumulating losses of Lm5 million.

Contrary to claims, Sea Malta only carried 0.5 per cent of all imports and exports, with the rest transported by private lines.

Dr Gatt asked why Ms Mizzi kept questioning the workers' livelihoods when she knew that Atlantica would be taking on 57 seafarers and 12 shore-based staff, for the same salaries as present, with guarantees against redundancies for five years.

At the same time, the Labour Party jumped on the bandwagon and started sounding the same tune as Ms Mizzi.

Dr Gatt said he could not accept Ms Mizzi's proposal for the Government to invest Lm3 million, retain the Maltese Falcon and Zebbug and impose a wage freeze for an eventual financial turnaround.

The minister underlined the importance of having the presence of the Grimaldi group in Malta, the largest RORO operator in the world.

Still, he said, the Grimaldi group was at one point beginning to get cold feet on the issue after Ms Mizzi and the Labour Party embarked on a systematic barrage of unfounded accusations. Likewise, other foreign private investors were asking whether this was the way business was carried out in Malta.

Asked why he never found it fit to sack the chairman, Dr Gatt said that Ms Mizzi was actually performing well before the government embarked on the privatisation process.

"Never did Ms Mizzi indicate to the Privatisation Unit that she was against privatisation, and it was therefore very surprising to see her resign a day before the Memorandum of Understanding was signed."