Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1441473
13 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 JANUARY 2022 Breakaway teachers' union owes UHM €45,000 MATTHEW AGIUS ONE of Malta's leading trade unions has locked horns in court over a €45,000 pending balance due from a former subsidiary union. The UĦM Voice of the Work- ers's secretary-general Josef Vel- la made the claim against the Union of Professional Educators (UPE), declaring that the sum was owed after the UĦM had been contracted by the UPE to provide trade union services and administrative support in 2018. UPE was formed by breakaway members of the Malta Union of Teachers, and today has 2,847 registered members, up from 2,107. The MUT has 10,163 members. The UPE paid the sum of €10,000 in October 2021, leaving a balance of €45,342 as yet un- paid, UĦM's lawyers said. In a reply filed last July to a judicial letter by the UĦM, the teachers' union had formally ac- cepted that it was UĦM's debtor to the tune of €55,342. But the UPE accused the UĦM of filing the judicial letter "simply to in- timidate" the smaller union and "create serious obstacles in the exercise of its duties towards its members." UPE declared itself open to the signing of a constitution of debt for the sum owed to UĦM, in a timeframe agreed by the two parties and stipulated in a letter sent in June. But it said the UĦM had not given a reason to justify its fail- ure to sign this constitution of debt, "despite the fact that this proposal was made to you sever- al times." Amongst the documents at- tached to the reply was a letter from UPE Executive Head Gra- ham Sansone dated 10 June, in which the UPE communicated that it was not in a position to settle funds by the June 23 dead- line given by the UĦM. Sansone had added, however, that the UPE was committing itself to fully settling its dues in bi-annual payments, in October and April of each year over a span of 36 months. JAMES DEBONO DISCOUNT supermarket gi- ant Lidl wants to open an out- let on the site occupied by the former General Soft Drinks fac- tory along Mdina road and Triq il-Vitorja in Qormi. The proposal is made is being made in a joint application by the Mizzi Group and Lidl, to amend a permit issued last year for the erection of residential units and showrooms on the 7,100sq.m site. The factory fronts a residential area along Triq il-Vitorja, and a mixed commercial and residen- tial area along Mdina road. The local plan zones the frontage on Mdina Road as a commercial ar- ea, while the remaining part of the site is a residential area. As approved in 2021, the five-storey development in- cludes three basement levels, three ground-floor showrooms over 2,103sq.m, and 126 apart- ments and 29 penthouses. The new plans envisage a 3,251sq.m supermarket with an underlying parking level at ground floor and 806sq.m of showrooms fronting Mdina road. The General Soft Drinks plant was inaugurated in 1952 and re- located to Marsa in 2008. Lidl already operates a super- market in Qormi's Landmark commercial centre. The site is owned by the Vassallo Builders Group, which recently applied to change the designation of a landscaped car park near Lidl from a 'green area' to a site for SMEs. Lidl was also granted a permit for a supermarket on the site of the SMW Cortis factory in Ħaż-Żebbuġ, which is just over 2.5km away from the former General Soft Drinks factory. In 2019, Lidl commanded the greatest market share by far in Malta's supermarket retail in- dustry, with turnovers of over €180 million. The next high- est-grossing chain were the Pavi and Pama supermarkets with a combined €80 million. Former General Soft Drinks plant will be turned into five- storey residential complex with supermarket frontage Lidl eyes new supermarket in Qormi