PM warns of possible intervention in rental market

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has once again warned that the government might have to intervene directly in the rental market if the difficult situation being created for low-income families was not corrected through other means.

Addressing the general meeting of the Malta Developers Association on Thursday, days after the controversial ITS deal, he said the construction industry was passing through a boom and it was necessary to make ensure that people did not fall by the wayside.

Dr Muscat said that the proliferation of foreigners in Malta was creating difficulties for Maltese people who rented their residences and promised more incentives including subsidies.

However, he also pointed out that the government would have to intervene and regulate the sector if the market did not take the necessary corrective action.

Without referring directly to the ITS deal, Dr Muscat said he appreciated the fact that everyone was interested in the projects being carried out but the government had to see the bigger picture.

PN leader Simon Busuttil was more direct. Without mentioning the deal, he promised developers that under his watch, valuable public land would only be given in a transparent way which reflected its real value.

“We will not be giving 24 tumoli of land in a high profile area for just €15 million,” he told developers in a direct dig at the government’s latest deal.

Dr Busuttil said that while he wanted to assure developers that under a PN government the industry would continue to flourish, they would not need to go knocking on Castille’s door to get what they have a right for.

The PN leader said that now that the Planning Authority and the Environment Authority had been separated, a future PN government would not change the scenario again but would make sure that the two separate entities would be truly independent.

The MDA will be discussing the ITS contract in an urgent meeting next Monday.