Reason, courtesy of the Ombudsman, has finally prevailed in the long drawn out eco-contributions polemic. The matter should never have resulted in a polemic between the government and the country’s businesses in the first place, but it became one due to the government’s reluctance to abide by its own rules.

In short, after following up a 2009 complaint registered by Green Dot Malta, the Ombudsman has found that the government’s reasons for denying eco-contribution exemptions to companies participating in organised recycling schemes were, in a word, unacceptable.

Now the ball is once again in the government’s court, as it has been since the beginning. This time, however, it has landed there courtesy of the Ombudsman, whose decision should be respected to the letter.

Although the complaint had been lodged in 2009, the issue dates back as far as 2006 and companies that have been denied the promised exemptions, instead of being rewarded for engaging in recycling, have been effectively ‘taxed’ twice over – once through their participation in the scheme and again by not benefitting from any tax exemptions or tax credits against their eco-contributions as they should have been.

Once the approved schemes were established, the Ombudsman found, the government was obliged to issue the exemptions and/or credits. But that it did not do.

A full year and a half ago the Chamber of Commerce lamented how companies complying with the new waste packaging rules have been waiting for years for the eco-contribution reimbursements they are owed.

It is unfathomable how the government had gone to great lengths to help drive the setting up of the eco-contribution and packaging waste systems, which became active after so long and after so many headaches, only to have turned around and scuttled the entire concept failing to reimburse companies for the eco-contributions they have paid.

The key word here is reimbursed, as the companies – basically anyone who manufactures or imports any product with packaging – have already paid the contribution, which is sitting in the state coffers.

It has been said that the government had problems with certain audit trails attached to waste management strategies, but, after all, how long could it take to sort out the problem?

Clearly, any producer with a hazy audit trail should be weeded out and be taken to task, but businesses abiding by the rules should on no account be punished for the shortcomings of others.

The opposition yesterday called on the government to make good on its dues, which date back to 2006 and which will undoubtedly set the state coffers back a pretty penny, and that call should be heeded.

The government must now bring the scheme it devised itself to full fruition. The ball, as we have said, is now in the government’s court.