Malta’s road to economic recovery is chosen as Monday’s Editorial by two of the Editors today, with planning and gender equality also finding space in today’s leading op-eds.
The Times of Malta discusses what it calls a mess at the planning tribunal after a number of conflicts of interest were revealed in the past few weeks in Court and in the press. Former PM Muscat’s appointee Martin Saliba, had been appointed chairman of the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal, while retaining his job as an employee then working at MEPA’s planning directorate. The Editor described how Saliba’s dual role has been described as a “gross miscarriage of justice” which potentially “denied citizens recourse to an impartial hearing”.
The Independent shares its view on the upcoming budget, saying that helping businesses will need to be a government priority, while adding that the general public cannot be forgotten. It recalls that some people are still working on reduced wages for example. The government might want to consider creating some schemes that will directly people save cash. It should also aim to help the more vulnerable sectors of society, such as pensioners. Indeed the Prime Minister had already mentioned that it intends to boost their standard of living.
L-Orizzont pushes for further equality between men and women, noting that progress has been achieved, while insisting that more can be done to support the inclusion of women in the labour market. The Editor notes that while in the past six years substantial progress has been achieved in attracting women to the work place (47% in 2014, 60% in 2018%), the number of women in managerial positions and boards remained very low compared to EU peers.
In-Nazzjon looks at what it describes as the perilous road to economic recovery, suggesting that Government is restricted by supportive measures that can be taken given that it disregarded its finances when the economy was performing well.
