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Julian Manduca
Food importers are still both angry and confused about their obligations when it comes to importing food products.
Several importers continue to claim that health certificates are being asked for, when they are not required, and many blame the Veterinary Department for complications that have arisen with their consignments.
Speaking to this newspaper, GRTU’s director general Vince Farrugia said: “The problems and bureaucratic delays are caused not only by the Veterinary Division which is perhaps the worst, but by all.”
Asked whether importers were still facing problems Farrugia replied: “Yes and how! I have asked the legal office of EuroCommerce in Brussels to help us present a legal case with the Commission. “My colleague and GRTU Vice-President Mario Debono has raised the matter directly with the Internal Market DG I Brussels last week and our representative, Ms Sylvia Sciberras in the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels raised the matter in the INT sub-committee of EESC of which she is a member representing Maltese enterprise only this Tuesday.”
On his part the director general of the Veterinary Division, Carmel Lino Vella told MaltaToday that he has not received complaints from importers recently. Vella said he had not received complaints from the GRTU, the Chamber of Commerce or any of the individual importers. “We even asked the Chamber of Commerce for a meeting but have heard nothing from it.”
Contacted by MaltaToday, a Chamber spokesperson said it had referred the problems its members encountered to the ministry for agriculture, and that it had not got back to the Veterinary Division about the meeting because the officials responsible were abroad. “The Chamber intends to meet the Veterinary Division to explain its point of view, but the chairman and his vice are away from the island,” the spokesperson said.
The GRTU is taking the problems seriously and Farrugia told MaltaToday: “We are calling an Extraordinary General Meeting of importers at GRTU tomorrow at 5pm to obtain all details from all sectors so that we can beef our case.”
MaltaToday is now informed that importers of meat products from outside the EU were not being allowed to sell their products since 1 May, but one importer told this newspaper that he was not facing problems in this respect. In this respect Vince Farrugia told MaltaToday: “I also talked to a delegation from New Zealand who where shocked at the way the Maltese authorities are handling their exports to Malta after so many
years of excellent trading relations between the two countries.”
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