Robert Abela announced a new round of proposals aimed at helping business owners on Wednesday evening, while repeating claims that the main financial backer of the PN’s proposal of an offshore fuel hub is “Malta’s biggest fuel smuggler”.
Speaking at a Labour Party event at the Garden of Serenity in Santa Luċija, Abela said the government would launch a mentorship programme with local entrepreneurs to help 16 to 18-year-olds set up and grow their first businesses.
Young start-up founders will be provided with free legal assistance and will be exempted from Malta Business Registry fees for the first five years.
Abela also pledged to launch a National Business Wallet, where businesses can store digital versions of documents, licences and permits, reducing bureaucracy and speeding up processes.
Abela was joined onstage by Steven Ellul, a young entrepreneur who co-developed an app that makes it easier to scan and evaluate the nutritional values of food products to meet users’ dietary needs and goals.
The Prime Minister announced that, should PL be re-elected, the app would be integrated into the government’s recently announced national strategy to prevent obesity from an early age.
Earlier in the day, at a press conference unveiling a €150 million investment by medtech firm Vantive, Abela urged the press to identify the “hidden investor” behind the PN’s plan to set up a fixed offshore fuel hub off Hurd’s Bank.
Repeating the claim at the event, despite the PN strongly denying the allegation shortly before, Abela said the unnamed backer had also approached him with the plan.
“He wanted a memorandum of understanding with the government that would be valid for 100 years,” Abela said.
Further criticising the plan, Abela contrasted the PL’s plans to generate new jobs with those of the opposition.
“While we create jobs that allow young people to remain in Malta, the PN wants to make workers travel hundreds of miles out to sea and back every day,” he said.
Meanwhile, Labour candidate-in-waiting Omar Rababah, who faced a torrent of abuse after announcing he was mulling putting his hat in the ring last week, also addressed the event in Santa Luċija.
He struck a defiant tone, listing his credentials as a born-and-bred Maltese citizen before receiving a standing ovation from the crowd when he asked them whether he should contest.
