Here’s the latest news from Crime Always Pays Country. Those ‘consumers’ who paid to have their electricity meters tampered with and who benefitted from whopping reductions in their electricity bills – are complaining. They’re finding it hard to cope with their repayment schedule, poor lambs.

It has been reported that these SMEs (‘small and medium sized enterprises’ or ‘consumers’ or ‘families’ – take your pick) are being crippled because they have to pay back the thousands of euros they should have paid in the first place before teaming up with their friendly Enemalta meter fixer.

As per usual in this country, the reaction to this announcement has been accepted wholesale by the ‘My Party/My Government Right or Wrong’ dimwits. According to these people, the amnesty granted to the electricity thieves is justified because Joseph Muscat has decreed it to be so. You will remember that the Prime Minister had tried to tug on our heart strings by saying something to the effect that he did not want to crucify poor hard-working families for their coping strategies.

This was how he tried to justify his approval of a scheme where people who received money for committing a crime were prosecuted, while the people who paid for the commission of the crime were not. This shocking and discriminatory way of dealing with crime was dismissed as being the only way of dealing with the problem as it was simply unthought of to subject families to the full rigour of the law (Incidentally, don’t erring Enemalta officials have families too?)

The blindly partisan numbskulls who accept this, sometimes go one step further. They argue that penalising people who break the law will be too great a burden for small businessmen. Having to pay their utilities bills on time (like the rest of us) will drive them out of business. Workers will lose their jobs, there will be mass unemployment and we will be losers all.

So –the argument goes – it’s much better to try and recoup what we can, let bygones be bygones and get on with it.

Wrong. This approach is bad for business – honest business people who uphold the law, pay their dues and try to maintain high standards of customer care. They are the ones being driven out of business by dishonest competitors who have an unfair advantage over them.

If Miss Tampered Meter is a hairdresser who has to pay negligible utilities bills, she has a competitive advantage over Mr Honest Hairdresser down the road. He has to grapple with a massive cost base. Eventually he will have to charge more for his services to cover his costs. Clients will skip down the road to Miss Tampered Meter’s Salon where the power required for blow-dries is sponsored by Enemalta, helping her to keep prices low.

Mr Honest’s profits will dwindle and one fine day he’ll simply throw in the towel and close shop. The field will be dominated by Miss Tampered Meter and others of her ilk – electricity thieves who do not pay their dues and who contribute to Enemalta’s debt-ridden state.

The worst aspect of it all is that dishonesty has just been given the government’s official seal of approval

I can’t understand how people can’t see the dangers of rewarding dishonest practices. Let’s take another example where an honest businessman loses out to unfair competition.

Chris Zahra is a sheep farmer and owner of the Verdalat brand of cheeselets. He has to deal with increasingly strict EU regulation, bouts of animal disease and a huge cost base. He has battled on, diversifying his products making cheeselets with rucola and chilli and with green and red peppercorns. He organises tours for tourists and schoolchildren in order to pass on his passion for the traditional way of producing cheeselets.

His products fly off the shelves. And yet he is struggling. Why? As stated above, his costs are high. Then, to make matters worse, there are competitors who make similar products using ingredients other than sheep’s milk and passing them off as the genuine product.

Obviously their costs are much lower. They can afford to sell their faux ġbejniet for a fraction of the price of Zahra’s.

You don’t blame shoppers for choosing the cheaper option, if they think it’s the same thing. While the authorities snooze or deliberately turn a blind eye to their dishonest practices, they make a good profit. If things continue in this manner, Zahra will have to give up.

Who will benefit if this happens? Not consumers, whose choice will be restricted to adulterated ġbejniet. Not Zahra, who has tried to provide a quality product. The only people laughing all the way to the bank will be unscrupulous traders passing off powdered milk products as the real thing.

There’s a short rhyming saying in Maltese which is too vulgar to put down here but which is very apt in these circumstances. Loosely translated it states that those people who play around with the rules, get ahead in life. In other words, crime does pay. Unfortunately many people believe this. They haven’t been given much reason to think otherwise.

Practically all the institutions in this country are too indulgent with wrongdoers. Those who breach planning laws are rewarded with a permit, electricity thieves are given amnesties, and producers of non-genuine products are allowed to sell with impunity.

There is no incentive to behave in an honest fashion. In fact, it’s actually a handicap or a disadvantage to try to be honest.

You know, the biggest loss in this Enemalta meters affair is not to the coffers of the corporation – though those are alarming. The worst aspect of it all is that dishonesty has just been given the government’s official seal of approval.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt