When there are so many hot subjects hogging the political agenda today, it is not surprising for consumer protection to be put on the back burner. In any case, it usually only surfaces sporadically or when consumers raise complaints about specific matters, such as the price of medicines, that affect a wide spectrum of the population. Yet, more and more consumers are becoming alert to their rights and to the kind of service they expect from traders and service providers.

A controversy of direct interest to consumers was that over the opening of shops on May 1. The way the matter was tackled, with the requirement for the payment of a licence fee of €700 for those who wanted to open, produced a farce of the first order, one that adds to the number the country appears to revel in. Is it not time to sort out the issue once and for all? Times have changed and, with partners in marriage, or otherwise, finding little time nowadays to do their shopping on week days due to the fact that they are both usually at work, it helps if they are able to find shops open on public holidays and Sundays.

Shop owners ought therefore to be allowed to open their outlets on Sundays and public holidays, if they want to and if they manage to come to an agreement over this with their employees. The decision ought to be left entirely in their own hands, irrespective of whether their outlets are located in tourist areas or not. Some small restaurants, and other places, that open over the weekend, or all day on Saturday, make up for these hours by opting to close on a particular day of the week, say, Monday. The matter ought to be considered in the light of today's circumstances.

But, apart from this issue, there are other burning matters, such as the shoddy service given by a number of service providers. Take service providers in the communications sector, for instance. These often boast of first-class customer service when, in fact, they often give headaches to people advancing their complaints, that is, if they manage to get through to them over the telephone in the first place. And if and when they do, they are only connected to the person charged to see to their particular query, or complaint, after agonising waits, with callers being made to press one if they want the call to be continued in Maltese, two in English, three in Chinese, four in Lebanese and whatever! And when this rigmarole is finally over, they would still have to listen to the best part of a symphony before they are connected. Really, if the business of these providers has grown so much that they are unable to handle the volume of calls they get in reasonable time, surely they can afford to employ more people at their telephone call offices.

Consumer protection in Malta has yet to make the quality leap forward that has been promised by politicians for ages. Whatever happened to the consumer protection agency the government announced with such fanfare in its party's last electoral programme? Believe it or not, they have already given it a name, Consumer Protect, but it has not seen the light of day yet. Which goes to prove the point made at the beginning, that consumer protection is still on the government's back burner.