Labour MP Leo Brincat yesterday called on the government to clarify its position on the introduction of dual pricing ahead of euro adoption.
He referred to a report in The Times yesterday and asked if the government had changed its position on introducing dual pricing on January 1.
Mr Brincat was speaking in Parliament during the debate on a Bill amending Consumer Protection Laws. The purpose of the Bill is to bring about better enforcement of the laws through better coordination of the work of consumer protection agencies.
The Labour MP said that the government had been warned even by EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia about the need to be prudent over early introduction of dual pricing. Now even Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech was saying that the cabinet decision on dual pricing had not been binding.
Mr Brincat said the monetary authorities should draw up a technical study on the impact of the euro in Malta, something that should have been done long ago.
The MLP was in principle in favour of euro adoption and, indeed, Malta had no option on the introduction of the European currency. However it did not make sense to adopt the currency when the economic growth rate was low.
Some were claiming that the MLP was aiming high when it said that the euro should be adopted when the economic growth rate was four per cent. He did not agree with such remarks. In Cyprus the economy was growing by some 4.2 per cent.
The Labour Party's interest, he said, was to protect the living standards of Maltese families especially low and medium income earners and pensioners.
Even in Cyprus, the government was still being asked to mark time in order to protect lower and medium income earners.
Earlier in his address Mr Brincat said consumer affairs were among the sectors which should have benefited most from EU membership. Yet Malta was continuing to lag in this sector because the government either dithered in its decision-making or took decisions without heeding advice.
The Office of Fair Trading continued to be shorn of a regulator, with the former incumbent having been made a permanent secretary.
The situation was especially serious because the cost of living was one of the people's top concerns. Government-induced costs were the principal causes of inflation, including a lack of effective action to reduce the oil imports bill.
The government now seemed to have taken notice of the need for hedging. But the House and the people needed to know more about what was actually being done, who was doing the power surcharge study and when it would be completed. There was also a need for a study on the impact the liberalisation of fuel imports would have.
A future Labour government would carry out a downward revision of power.
Mr Brincat said another aspect of consumer affairs which was worrying the people was the spiral in the price of medicines and the decrease in the choice of available medicines.
Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech had said that there was no real scarcity of medicines in Malta, but agents were only importing the most expensive medicines because they yielded a higher profit margin. The Chamber of Pharmacists should say its piece about this charge.
He asked which was less painful: when people in Malta could not buy chocolate and other products, and now when they could not buy medicines - not that he wanted a return to those days.
It was important for regulators to be effective in their work, without which it was useless to speak about consumer's rights.
Mr Brincat appealed for a dynamic consumer policy that reflected the constant changes that were taking place in the world of electronics, informatics and e-commerce. The new challenges should be faced with new methods to protect consumers. Labour MP Evarist Bartolo said it was useless building pan-European cooperation networks when the national consumer rights authority was not effective enough.
So while the opposition agreed with the aim and reasons of this Bill, the national authority needed to be strengthened. There was a widespread belief in Malta that consumer protection was too weak. Consumers felt there was not enough protection.
Consumer organisations should not just offer defence for the people but should also take a proactive approach by promoting consumer rights.
Banks, insurers and employer organisations should also do their bit to inform consumers. A lot of money was spent on advertising and marketing in Malta but independent information on the quality of products and services was lacking. There were countries were the government collected a percentage of bank profits to go towards financial information.
He said that one was now talking of financial literacy - it was not enough to know how to read and write, one had to be financially literate. Because of the country's size and small market, it was not right to rely just on market forces. To do so was dangerous. The size of the local market made it difficult for the competitive free market model to work.
He said that a big problem in Malta was that of enforcement. Because of the country's size enforcing legislation was harder. One should see what to do about this problem so as not to continue destroying confidence in consumer organisations.
Mr Bartolo complained that the Consumer Affairs' Tribunal was taking months to decide its cases. By mid-March, there were 71 pending cases.
Turning to inflation, Mr Bartolo said that although the EU was considering removing the inflation criteria for member states to join the euro, the government was so worried about the current situation in Malta that it was threatening to issue price orders.
This was an admission of failure by the structures which were supposed to safeguard consumers. These structures should investigate if price increases, such as those for medicines, were justified or not. In the case of medicine, the government had negotiated badly with the EU and even "friends" of the PN believed the government should revisit that agreement. Other speakers will be reported in another issue.