Malta could face 'political and institutional meltdown,' Employers Association warns

Malta is facing a political and institutional meltdown unless the two major parties don’t get their respective “houses in order,” the Malta Employers Association said.

MEA said the governing Labour Party was “mired in an ever-increasing series of scandals,” which has left the country’s international reputation in tatters.

However, the association said, the Opposition Nationalist Party was a “disorganised mess,” and failing miserably to project itself as an alternative government, as expected from an Opposition party.

“Society, in general, is being betrayed by the political class, and there is a general loss of faith in leadership, and in our major institutions such as the law courts and the police. Such a state of affairs is untenable and carries the real danger of institutional collapse,” the MEA said.

The MEA was reacting to an unprecedented week, which saw PN leader Adrian Delia lose a confidence vote by 19 MPs - however, despite the loss and calls for his resignation has vowed to stay on.

That same day, a damming report was also published by the National Audits Office (NAO) which found collusion between Vitals Global Healthcare and the government on the hospital deal.

The NAO said that the multi-million euro deal to transfer three state hospitals to an obscure private company was “predetermined.”

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The Association warned that an institutional collapse would leave no winners and the country stands to lose what the Maltese people have worked so hard to achieve post Independence. It said, unlike COVID, this is a crisis of our own making which no vaccine will cure.

“The only way in which we can get out of this hole is by acknowledging the gravity of the situation, putting aside tribal differences, and to have a concerted effort to clean up our act by stamping out crime and corruption. We need to restore core values based on entitlement through hard work, solidarity and tolerance, and a business environment based on trust, enterprise and commitment,” the association said.

The MEA stressed that there was a serious need to consider parliamentary reform to attract Malta’s best minds towards the vocation of politics. “Social partners, through the MCESD, need to get their heads together to shake the country out of its state of denial and address this situation concretely before matters reach critical mass. Maltese people deserve better.”