Joseph Mizzi (November 8) is right, in my view, to picture Malta as heading towards a "Cuba (rather than a Switzerland) of the Mediterranean" during the Socialist years, but change for the better hasn't been as rapid or profound as he claims.

Socialist ideology replaced percentage wage increases with a flat pay rise for all, shrunk the civil service pay scale and abolished the banking and university pensions. 1987 promised a new dawn, but this low wage and capped pension economy was conveniently left intact and sold as "social solidarity". The recent (but long-awaited) much improved doctors' salaries, for example, were only achieved by their union's ultimatum not to go to the new hospital without a new pay package.

No doubt some pensioners have benefited from now being able to be paid for working between ages 61 and 65, and still receive their pension. However, Maltese Socialist pension law still does not permit an occupational pension, besides the retirement pension.

Those Maltese who have worked in Malta and in another EU country are punished by having their right to a Maltese pension almost totally removed if they have an occupational pension from another EU state.

This anomaly in Maltese pension law has yet to be rectified. The most significant pension reforms have been those relating to parliamentarians.