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GRTU wants bureaucracy watchdog
Management Efficiency Unit says public bureaucracy costing €116 million for businesses.
The Office of the Prime Minister's management efficiency unit (MEU) told a meeting of the Malta-EU Steering Action Committee that public bureaucracy for businesses was costing €116 million, according to its own estimates.
In the study presenting by MEU chief executive John Aquilina, the unit found 400 laws and 2,500 legal notices affecting businesses, 15% of which were EU laws 'gold plated' by national additions that went beyond the original scoe of the directives, and 45% of national laws.
A total of €116,240,594 in Value Added Tax payments, and other fees payable in company law and planning fees emanated directly from these laws.
According to the MEU, efforts to reduce these burdens have already been enacted amounting to €8.5 million yearly and 278,450 man-hours saved thanks to IT development and online submissions for inland revenue and VAT returns.
By the end of 2012 another €9 million worth of bureaucracy will have been reduced, mainly in the areas of environment and planning, public procurement, food safety, and pharmaceutical laws.
In comments to MEUSAC, the director of the Chamber for SMEs Vince Farrugia said the GRTU's estimate of bureaucracy costs was always high. "But this figure has exceeded our expectations. Government bureaucracy never stopped increasing. It would be another Maghtab."
But Farrugia said the MEU lacked the legislative power to intervene in cutting down bureaucracy.
"We are fed up of the lot of usual rhetoric. If government really wants to make regulation work for business it has to enact a transparent system where the MEU can act as a watchdog on better regulation, where departments and public servants are accountable and have the MEU breathing down their necks if they are not business-friendly.
"We have to start by making it obligatory for any new legal notice or even a change in the legislation to go through the MEU for scrutiny. This is the challenge GRTU is proposing to the regulators that really want to enact a pro-enterprise environment and help Malta gain its competitive edge," Farrugia said.
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Prosit vera tal-genn dan il-pajjiz. GRTU ma tisthux minn wicc Alla. Watch dog fuq il-burokrazija tal-Waste Serv messkom titolbu. Forsi johorgu l-hnizrijiet li qed tghamlu bil-Green MT u xejn ma hu xejn. Basta ninpalaw il-liri. X'ma jippupax sidru Vince u jigri lejn Brussels jippoza. Ghadu ma qaghadx tajjeb biz-zejjed "Jiggieled ghan-negozjant" Ta. Dan kien kontra l-VAT u l-Cash registers. Issa gej u sejjer Brussels sabiex jimlihom bl-gherf.
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The GRTU and the private industry may contribute to the costs of IT development and other business processes that they are suggesting to the Government of Malta, since, they are directly benefiting, in terms of cost-savings.
