When price control was abolished, it was intended for shops to be more competitive, for the customer’s benefit.

However, for some traders, the lure of bigger profits was too strong to resist.

You could go to any shop/supermarket and buy a 50cl bottle of Kinnie for 88c, but for a new shop in Mellieħa, part of a well-known chain, you have to pay €1.22, an extra profit of 34c. As for a 50cl bottle of Pepsi, the price is €1.27.

I certainly won’t go again, but isn’t this tantamount to ‘stealing’?

While I am not advocating going back to price control, surely there should be a ‘ceiling’ as to how much a shop can mark up its prices.

And isn’t there a law that stipulates a shop must price all its goods so that a customer is aware of what he is paying?

But there again, this is Malta, where laws are enacted, but never enforced.