Business thrives on competition and competition thrives on level playing fields. Alas, the situation with regard to shops in Valletta is about as level as the Alps.

The lucky ones are the shop owners who have their own premises as they have certainty – not only over whether they can stay there and for how long, but also over their costs.

Less fortunate are those who rent their premises, either from the government or from the private sector.

An increasing number of the ones who rent from the private sector pay rents at market prices and also have a degree of certainty. They might not be happy with what they are paying (or with the duration of the agreement) but what really makes them unhappy is that they are surrounded by numerous businesses who rent at subsidised rates. How can a shop paying a few hundred euros a day in rent afford to charge the same prices for its products or services as one paying a few hundred a year?

The private owners earning such paltry rents are also hapless victims. They are unable to get a realistic market rent and are also unable to retrieve their property. This will change over the coming decade years, as changes to rent laws creep into force to give tenants time to adjust – but it is not nearly fast enough for owners champing at the bit after decades.

For those paying a paltry rent to the government, it is the taxpayers who are the victims as the government is ultimately not maximising its assets.

The previous government sought to address this through a scheme which raised the rates – but also gave tenants more security as instead of leases that had to be renewed every nail-biting six months, they had the option of three 15-year leases.

This government, however, was not satisfied and changed the option to a 45-year emphyteusis, raising the rates considerably higher, on par – if not higher – than commercial rates. (And why not? The capital city is a prime location, after all.)

This has sorted out one important aspect of the problem affecting the majority of tenants – but there is another category of tenants who live in a legal limbo.

These are the ones who sublet from tenants who have a lease agreement with the government. Since very few of those lease agreements allow subletting, the sub-lessors status is precarious, to say the least.

The scheme could work in different ways: since the emphyteusis scheme allows subletting, the fortunate ones could finally get a proper agreement from the tenant. And since many of them already pay nearly commercial rents to sublet, the impact on them would not be so great.

The current scheme also allows sublessors to apply for an emphyteusis themselves, great for those who want to free themselves from the clutches of unscrupulous tenants who charge them exorbitant rates. But if the government gets applications from both the tenant and the sublessor, who would win?

Tonio Camilleri, the head of the Merchants Street Business Association, is concerned that some sublessors will end up on the streets, all their work and investment and goodwill counting for nothing.

There is no doubt considerably more information available to the government than has been divulged but Mr Camilleri is right in saying that the scheme should have been preceded by a clean-up exercise to establish who was really occupying its premises, whether this was being done regularly or not, for how long they had been there, and how much they were paying.

The scheme will undoubtedly bring certainty to the majority but it should also ensure that those who were squeezed between a rock and a hard place for so many years do not end up even worse off.