Government spent €44.6 million on voucher scheme to help regenerate economy

The government spent €44.6 million on the voucher incentive scheme, with 2.23 million vouchers issued, Economy Minister Silvio Schembri announced.

Schembri was addressing a press conference on Thursday, over the performance of the scheme which saw all residents aged 16 and over receive €100 in vouchers as part of government's plan to regenerate the economy.

The vouchers were split up in tranches of €20 each - four red ones to be used in restaurants, bars and hotel accomodation, and one blue one to be used in outlets that had been forced to shut because of the pandemic.

Schembri said 1.1 million red vouchers and 0.23 million blue vouchers have been used. The red vouchers are being used a little more.

30,000 vouchers still need to be picked up. The deadline to pick up vouchers from MaltaPost has also been extended.

It is unknown where these vouchers are being used due to data protection measures. Mimcol, the governent agency entrusted with running the scheme, can only know how many vouchers have been used in certain establishments. Patterns show that usage is heavier on weekends.

A record number of transactions were generated on Saturday 8 August when 54,000 vouchers were used on the day injection more than €1 million in the economy.

The vouchers were mostly spent at four-star hotels, popular restaurants, and among big retail groups. A total of 5,616 outlets have been receiving vouchers.

Audits will be carried out by authorities to ensure a level playing field.

Two helplines were set up, with businesses and consumers benefitting from their own separate helplines. Mimcol received 9,400 emails from consumers, and 3,800 emails from businesses. There were 4,432 cases of people saying that they had not received their voucher, and 25 cases were rejected.

However, businesses did experience a few issues. From the total number of complaints, 70% of businesses failed to receive their activation codes sent by post, while another 30% were more technical issues relating to NACE code category, credit card details, and mobile issues.

Issues cropped up for consumers too. A number of persons had lost their voucher tracking number, while under 250 Maltese nationals failed to receive their vouchers.

The red vouchers generated a multiplier of 1.36 - this means that for every €20 voucher, an additional €7.16 was spent. The multiplier for the blue voucher was much higher, with every €20 voucher averaging an additional €16.42.

Furthermore, despite a voucher usage rate of less than 60%, the total amount generated was €37.3 million including VAT, with €11.5 million spent over and above the revenue generated by vouchers alone.

The validity of vouchers will be extended by one month until the end of October.