Back off

I don't know whether I should laugh or cry when I hear the MLP harping on the rise in prices. The cost of living is indeed rising as is our standard of living. The burning question is: Are we paying more because we are being cheated or are we spending more because prices and expectations have actually risen?

Labour agrees that prices are soaring overseas. On January 23, Alfred Sant wrote: "Inflation is picking up worldwide and it would be illusory to believe that price pressures will not also pile up in Malta, with food topping the list of headaches".

A report in a UK daily on January 18 read: "Almost every day seems to bring some shock. This year, young as it is, has seen fuel prices hit fresh highs, with oil at or around $100 (£51) a barrel; food bills spiralling, pushed higher by record wheat... and yesterday the energy supplier EDF - which commands the bulk of the market in London and the South - said it would raise its gas prices by 12.9 per cent and electricity bills by 7.9 per cent from Friday, due to 'soaring' wholesale energy costs... More will follow".

To make good for oil price hikes we are paying the surcharge (although some 30,000 families in difficulty are exempt and industry has a capped rate). Undoubtedly, this solution is by far the fairest on consumers. The more one consumes (wastes) the more one pays.

Surprisingly, the Labour Party promises to do away with half the surcharge. I heartily second EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia's argument that politicians must be serious and "tell their citizens the consequences of their electoral promises. When announcing cuts, political parties must also give details of the consequences of these cuts and how these will affect the fiscal consolidation of the country. Political parties must spell out in detail what other resources will they use to make up for lost revenue. Politicians need to be very prudent in the current global economic circumstances".

We do not want to hear what we would like to know. We want to hear what we need to know. We need to know that a Labour government is not planning to raise our utility bills or tax our meters to make up for the "financial" shortfall Labour's proposal will inevitably cause.

The Labour Party blames the government and the euro for the rising cost of living and that this Administration is ignoring consumers' well-being. At every turn it repeats the fallacy that, since the euro was introduced, we are being overcharged by importers, retailers etc. Factories, supermarkets, schools, pharmacies, offices, butchers, libraries etc are not charitable institutions ergo, the higher their costs, the higher their charges for several foodstuffs and essential goods, as in: medicines, grains and cereals, meats, cheese etc.

So why does Labour persistently accuse shopkeepers of over charging and insinuates that, under a Labour government, the cost of living will stop rising? Really? How? What supernatural spell will it cast? And once it's at it, can it possibly lend its magic wand to the rest of the European leaders and the whole universe so that prices can decrease there too?

Back to the real world...

The responsibility to monitor prices and check abuse falls under the Enforcement Directorate (Consumer and Competition Division) set up in January of last year. This institution visited over 20,000 different shops; investigated all complaints lodged by the public and clamped down on the abusers. The Euro Observatory, which falls under the Ministry of Finance (set up under the Euro Adoption Act (Cap. 485), is also investigating reported abuse. Up to mid-November 2007, apart from introducing the FAIR initiative, together, these institutions carried out over 57,000 inspections. Most were found "innocent"; the "guilty" ones adjusted their prices.

Mr Almunia personally complimented the Maltese government on measures taken to curtail all abuse: "Malta has continued to implement a comprehensive set of measures to address these price fears".

All I can say is, that, in 1998, when Dr Sant was Prime Minister he admitted that "he never promised to reduce the cost of living but only to restrain it, a promise his government had kept" (The Times, August 23). That is exactly what the Nationalist government is doing as it has no intention of ever regressing to "price controls".

Moreover, this Administration is not only focusing its energy to "restrain" the cost of living and arrest abuse to meet the rising costs; it reimbursed us with a weekly compensation; it is subsidising our utility bills; it is reducing our tax burden; it is introducing more tax exemptions; it is increasing children's allowance and pensions etc. and it will definitely never resort to being stingy on social benefits, health services, pensions as Charles Mangion, the MLP's deputy leader, recently suggested a Labour government would do.