Wage supplement extended by a month / Malta News Briefing – Thursday 16 December 2021

1745- Latest News portal briefing

Times of Malta says people aged over 35 can now register to get the COVID-19 booster jab as Malta steps up efforts to contain rising case numbers. 

MaltaToday says Health minister Chris Fearne blamed a controversial 2019 side-letter hammered out by disgraced Labour Konrad Mizzi for the 82% budgetary increase for Steward Healthcare’s labour resources.

Newsbook says a man has been fined €300 after admitting in court that he had failed to register his dog as required by law.

TVM says Malta will continue to move towards more renewable energy, with the target now being to switch from LNG to hydrogen.

Afternoon briefing

Senior official raises suspicions over funds funnelled out of hospitals deal: A senior health ministry official raised suspicions that funds meant for running three state hospitals were funnelled out of Vitals Global Healthcare. According to a National Auditor General report, there were “serious concerns” raised by the unidentified official. These suspicions were based on the simple fact that, despite VGH being paid enough by the government to cover existing operations of the three hospitals, the company still accumulated a significant list of creditors, the report says. Auditor General Charles Deguara heavily criticised the decision to hand the running of the three public hospitals to VGH because of dubious healthcare credentials.

Covid-19 Update: A total of 167 new daily cases were reported today while 99 people recovered. 16 people are being treated in hospital, 3 of whom are in the ITU.Morning Briefing

Wage supplement extended by a month

Government’s wage supplement scheme has been extended until January 2021, after Cabinet approval. PM Robert Abela said the extension was approved after considering the international landscape and the need to sustain Malta’s recovery from the pandemic. “On an international level there is uncertainty when it comes to travelling, and we also saw that companies are facing a logistics headache when importing goods,” Abela said. “We want to sustain the progress we have achieved over the last months”, he added.

MEPs in critique of Helena Dalli’s ‘equality-language’ proposals

European Commissioner Helena Dalli was in for a barrage of critiscm in the European Parliament on Wednesday as a number of MEPs expressed their dissatisfaction at a proposal which sought to remove references to Christmas and to gender-related references to persons. The guidelines, pushed by the EU Equality Commissioner, have since been pulled. “Dalli’s guidelines deeply offended staff members. Promoting integration shouldn’t mean insulting or offending many citizens in Europe and the European Union staff”, former EP President said. While the majority of MEPs mocked the proposals, starting or ending of their speeches with a Merry Christmas, a number of MEPs from the left of the spectrum defended the proposals and called for more equality.

Covid-19 Update: 168 new cases of coronavirus were reported on Wednesday, with 110 recovering. There are currently 1464 active cases, 23 of whom in hospital, 3 in ITU. Meanwhile, more than one million doses of anti-Covid vaccines have been given, including booster jabs.