Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1263074
8 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 24 JUNE 2020 NEWS SCOOTER 001 SHARING THE PRESENT, SO WE CAN BUILD A BETTER FUTURE. One app. Over 450 shared vehicles. Pay per minute, per hour or per day. goto.com.mt/download * Rate per minute for Scooter trips on the GoTo Business Plan. Terms and Conditions apply. €1.50 PAGE 2 PAGE 5 Silvio Schembri apologises for 'unfortunate' foreign workers comments Banking customers offered home loan moratorium due to Covid-19 THURSDAY 19 MARCH 2020 • ISSUE 50 WWW.BUSINESSTODAY.COM.MT DAVID HUDSON A rescue package worth €1.8 bil- lion has been unveiled to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on the economy. PAGE 3 PAGE 2 Editorial PAGE 9 RIDING OUT THE STORM AND SAVING JOBS Coronavirus Government announces €1.8b rescue package to mitigate crisis Robert Abela BOV registers pre-tax profit of €89.2m • Government to pay companies €350 per employee on quarantine leave • Businesses ordered to shut down temporarily, will receive two days of assistance per week per employee Id-dinja dieħla f'riċessjoni? U Malta? www.illum.com.mt ARA PAĠNI 12 u 13 €1.25 IL-ĦADD 22 TA' MARZU 2020 • NRU 701 'Il-Gvern huwa rrassenjat li se nitilfu x-xogħol. Mentri aħna rridu nsalvawh' 'ROBERT GĦINNA QABEL IKUN TARD WISQ' Il-GWU, l-MHRA, il-GRTU, il-FATTA u l-UĦM mal-ILLUM iwissu li jekk il-Gvern mhux se jħabbar miżuri ġodda se jibdew jingħalqu n-negozji u jintilfu l-impjiegi, speċjalment fit-turiżmu, fir-ristoranti u d-divertiment! ARA PAĠNI 4 u 5 PAĠNI 10 u 11 SUNDAY • 22 MARCH 2020 • ISSUE 1064 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY €1.95 maltatoday This won't work, Robert EDITORIAL MT2 ROBERT Abela's package does not go far enough and will not work. Malta has entered a war which has destabilised the economy and all its workers. Abela cannot be scared of spending and rack- ing up the necessary government debt needed for a national stim- ulus now: the risks of not acting will be greater than what lies ahead in the next months. He must alleviate economic hard- ship during the epidemic to pre- vent lasting damage to the econ- omy by stopping this recession from turning into the next Great Depression. What Malta needs is a form of universal credit for all, to keep aggregate demand up and so that idle workers at home can return straight to work at the end of the crisis and restore the supply chain. STAY IN, STAY SAFE, WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT/COVID19 Our appeal is simple: Maltese businesses must be sustained by keeping workers in a job with a social insurance that sustains their wages CLAUDIO GRECH 'We cannot allow Maltese businesses to fail. We would be failing society' INTERVIEW MT2 Never before has your support of free and independent journalism been so crucial Support us with a subscription or a donation maltatoday.com.mt/maltatodaydigitaledition A 59-year-old man was found not guilty of causing serious in- juries to another man and light injuries to a woman in Septem- ber 2018. The court heard how the fight erupted when a certain Clyde Cassar was taking out his gar- bage, when he saw the accused, Joseph Cauchi, leaning on his car. Cassar proceeded to ask him why he was leaning on the car, leading to a heated argument. The incident occurred on the 9 September 2018, at around 6:30pm in Maitland Street, Hamrun. The court said it could not find sufficient guilt in Cauchi's actions, due to the fact that there was no concrete proof at law on what had happened. Police sergeant Anthony Cas- sar said in court that he was informed of the case through an anonymous phone call, but while he sent officers on site, the three persons involved in the case had already gone to the police station. The sergeant explained how they had entered the police sta- tion with blood on their person, and were advised by the police to go to the nearest health clinic to be examined by a doctor. Clyde Cassar and Josette Sam- mut chose not to testify, since they had pending criminal pro- ceedings against them in con- nection with the incident. The court, presided by Mag- istrate Ian Farrugia, said that it was probable that the accused did what was being alleged of him, but according to law, probability was not sufficient enough for the prosecution to prove its case. The prosecution was led by In- spector Spiridione Zammit. A 17-year-old youth was charged with stealing money from his mother's aunt to sustain his drug habit, with the court hearing that he is also homeless. The teenager admitted the charges. He was not granted bail. The young man said he was homeless after getting kicked out of his parents' household. He said the theft was to sustain a drug habit. Due to the accused not having a residence to live in, the court will be drawing up a pre-sen- tencing report. It will also car- ry out an assessment of the ac- cused in order to establish what type of help he needs and deliv- er the appropriate sentence. The accused is also a first-time offender. Magistrate Josette Demicoli presided over the case and law- yer Victor Bugeja was legal aid. A 22-year-old man was re- manded in custody after police charged him with sexually har- assing a teenager on a public transport bus and off it. The court heard how the Su- danese man, Adem Saleh, sat near the 19-year-old girl on a public transport bus on 21 June and touched her leg. The wom- an got off at the next bus sta- tion to try and evade the man. However, he continued to fol- low her, before attempting to grab her breast in the vicinity of Sky Parks in Luqa. The young woman managed to escape the accused, after a person who was nearby heard her calls for help. She received protection from the man, be- fore her parents arrived on site. The accused had managed to escape, but after patrolling the area with her parents, the victim managed to identify the man. He was arrested by the police. No bail was requested, and the 22-year-old remained un- der arrest. Magistrate Josette Demicoli presided over the case and law- yer Victor Bugeja was legal aid. Not guilty of causing serious injuries during heated argument Homeless 17-year-old stole to sustain drug habit Man groped woman on a bus and continued to harass her JAMES DEBONO THE daughter of the construction magnate behind the 32-storey Mercury House Paceville high rise is eying an agricultural store in an area of high land- scape value in Nadur. Chloe Portelli, daughter of controversial property magnate Joseph Portelli, has applied to construct a 37sq.m agricultural store in a picturesque location in Gozo known as ta' Kennuna. The store is being proposed on a 22,603 sq.m plot of agricultural land on a site where the Planning Au- thority recently issued an enforcement order against illegal works, specifically new rubble walls which did not previously exist on the site. Residents had been complaining of these works for months before PA officials intervened. The store is being proposed in an area known as il-Gebel l-Ahmar in the vicinity of Triq it-Torri ta' Kenuna, in Nadur Details of another application presented on the site are still not available to the public, as the application has not yet been fully submitted. MaltaToday is in- formed that the application is related to sanctioning the new rubble walls. But the PA's advisory committee on agricultural issues has already objected to the proposals, noting that although Portelli is registered as a farmer, one- third of the holdings are registered as non-arable and therefore the applicant is not in possession of suffi- cient landholding to justify such a large store. Neither has the applicant submitted proof of arable farming. Present policies foresee that plots under 22,000sq.m are only entitled to 20sq.m stores while those over that threshold are entitled to a 40sq.m store. Moreover no justification has been provided for the size of the proposed room. The committee has recommended relocating the proposal closer to the road so as to minimize soil uptake. The area is designated as being one of high landscape value in the local plans. Portelli scion applies for agricultural store