The Nationalist Party manifesto is tangled in a web of new red tape, and should the PN return to power, it will suffocate most businesses, with small and medium enterprises expected to face the brunt first.
This poisoned chalice, coming under the sexy name of Environmental, Social, and Governance Standards (ESGs), has nothing wrong in itself, quite the contrary, but the way the PN is proposing to introduce it will generate havoc in the same way that nice looking wooden horse did within the walls of an extremely well fortified city. Remember Troy anyone?
Our economic sector right now, even when compared to top tier EU economies, is going from strength to strength. Two main ingredients that made this possible, aside from the hard working entrepreneurial Maltese business community, where a general reduction in Government red tape towards a much more business oriented approach, and a vast range of incentives and stimuli that kept the Maltese operator at the front.
Our economic sector right now, even when compared to top tier EU economies, is going from strength
to strength.
So what’s wrong with the PN’s ESGs?
Quite simply they are putting everyone in the same basket with zero regard to any form of sectoral or no-strings attached approach. Under a PN Government, for any business operator to qualify for most of the incentives and measures being proposed, they would have to fulfill the same criteria at substantial costs. And virtually like anything else in their manifesto, the details of which are still a mystery. And if you think that ESGs are voluntary, think twice, as those who don’t self-impose these new administrative burdens will be discriminated against starting and not limited to paying higher taxes from their competitors.
So if you are an SME and would like to gamble your current standing, go ahead and give Bernard a chance.
Businesses need robust and streamlined frameworks, and not new cumbersome certification procedures that will add countless and costly administrative burdens to very little benefits in return.
If on the other hand you want stability and sustained economic growth, we guess the choice is obvious. No?
