Labour government will not make false investment promises

A Labour government will make sure that foreign investments are doable and viable before announcing them, Opposition PMs Gavin Gulia and Chris Cardona said.

The Opposition MPs called on Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to honour the promised  €22 million investment of aviation company, Aviation Cosmetics.

Cardona described the delayed investment as  "another of a string of false promises made by GonziPN."

Labour said the government should come clean and explain what the timeframes for the project are and give details of when the project will be completed.

"These failures do not only harm the economy because promised jobs are not created, but Malta's political credibility is also affected," Cardona said.

The MP explained that the announcement of the Dutch investment was made by Gonzi in February during the same debate in which he had announced that a Brazilian company, Odebrecht would be relocating to Malta from Brazil.

He said the Aviation Cosmetics investment was the last of a number of announced investments which never materialised or have been delayed.

In May, Gonzi had announced that Aviation Cosmetics was to relocate to Malta from Eindhoven and construct a €22 million specialised and dedicated facility in Safi employing over 80 persons.

Cardona explained that to date the company has not employed anyone and has breached its contractual obligations, such as paying the security deposit.

He added that a local subsidiary company, Aviation Cosmetics Malta, was set up with the bare minimum of share capital and the company has so far not honoured its commitments to pay Malta Enterprise the yearly ground rent of €250,000 and a €4million guarantee.

Aviation Cosmetics managing director Tom Jansen reportedly said that "It is a very complex building and at the time the Government wanted us to sign the contract... but we were not quite ready for it."

On his part, Gulia asked why the government acted in a hurry, adding that "Nine months down the line, there still is no sign of the project."

Quoting the European Commission, Gulia said "The Maltese government has many good ideas but is weak in implementing them."