No MTA board after term expired in May

The Malta Tourism Authority is operating without a board, with the previous appointees’ term having expired last month and a new one still not constituted.

MTA’s chief executive officer, Josef Formosa Gauci, confirmed that there was no board at the moment but that the MTA’s operations continued as usual.

The issue was first raised in parliament by Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo last week during the approval of the Authority’s financial estimates.

“There is no board at the moment but the executive continued with its work as normal,” Formosa Gauci said.

Malta Hoteliers and Restaurants Association (MHRA) CEO Andrew Agius Muscat said he could not understand why the government was taking so long to appoint the board.

“We were asked to make our nomination last month and so we did. We cannot understand why the board has not yet been formally constituted and we cannot understand what’s causing the delay,” he said.

Agius Muscat went on to add that more importantly, government had to update its tourism strategy.

“We have now been incessantly urging the government to review its strategy, including the MTA’s operations. The sector needs a new vision.”

The board has to be appointed by the government. Questioned what was causing the delay in the appointment of the board, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis said he was “conscious” of the fact that the previous board’s term had expired.

“Effectively speaking, the executive board is still functioning as normal and no work has been halted. It might be appointed in the coming days… it might be today,” the minister told MaltaToday yesterday afternoon.

The MTA is made up of 11 voting members and of the chief executive, who is a non-voting member. According to the law regulating the authority, six persons are appointed by the minister according to their knowledge and experience of the sector; one person is nominated by the MHRA; another member is nominated by travel agents; one is nominated by Air Malta and two others on the recommendation of such other associations recognised by the minister as representing other sectors providing travel and tourism services.

Arrigo, the Nationalist Party’s spokesperson on tourism, said the situation at the MTA was unacceptable.

“A month has passed and MTA is still without a board. This is illegal and without a precedent. Last week parliament debated the authority’s financial estimates without a board being constituted,” he said.

Arrigo said the Opposition agreed to go ahead with the parliamentary debate because it wanted to be a positive opposition and ensure that the tourism industry gets the budgeted funds without any delays.

During the parliamentary debate, Arrigo insisted that things should only be repaired if they are broken: “The MTA is not broken. The authority was a success and the success enjoyed by the tourism sector was also thanks to the MTA. These persons should not be sidelined.”

Replying, Zammit Lewis said no one was being sidelined and he had no intention of sidelining anyone.

“It’s as if a change in the minister [responsible for tourism] has created a bad situation. If he [Arrigo] does not have faith in me, I do believe in myself and I am determined to continue running this sector successfully,” the minister said, in reply to Arrigo’s parliamentary intervention.

Zammit Lewis added that the authority’s accounts had already been approved by a legally constituted board.