Hot on the heels of a massive increase in registered mail tariffs (a double price increase for only half of the delivery service provision) comes yet another huge price hike in local postage rates with immediate effect and with another increase next year.

The rise is reportedly justified by the Malta Communications Authority when upholding Maltapost’s requests for such increases.

Purportedly, Maltapost has been operating at a loss “for a number of years”. However, I fail to locate a Maltapost annual statement of accounts in which a loss of income was generated. Lower profits do not equate to a loss and need versus greed should be more clearly defined.

Sadly, and this has been confirmed in the letters in this page, a sharp decline in acceptable services provided by Maltapost (also for a number of years) has been clearly identified. Which means customers are getting less service provisions but against greater cost.

It would appear that the MCA is a compliant and light-touch ‘regulator’ that persistently acquiesces to ‘requests’ for postal rate increases without challenging such. The regulator was quoted saying said that Maltapost’s “losses” were unsustainable and that no feedback was received on the proposals.

I find it extremely difficult to comprehend how nobody submitted any feedback given that I, along with many others I know, lodged an objection to the tariff increases.

The MCA, as a regulatory watchdog and the people’s protector, should accept and provide for consumer needs and ensure such essentials take preference over the unacceptable protection of a purported loss of profits, aka, a loss in authority. People before profits should be the MCA’s mantra.