Those who maintain that regulatory agencies are not functioning well enough are probably correct. The consumers’ authority, that regulating financial services, as well as the planning agency among others, have been at the receiving end of criticism to which they then made ineffective responses. Complaints about the way these agencies operate are not all motivated by partisan pique; I get to hear such complaints from fervent supporters of the government.

Problems have not hatched and become public just now. They have been felt right from the start, when agencies were first launched. Supposedly these serve to ensure that laws and regulations are correctly implemented and to check abuses. In a situation where market forces were becoming more powerful and frequently responded to the controls run by narrow sectoral interests, the agencies were meant to operate “independently”, not least from the government of the day.

However the perception there is today is that they are powerless and/or serve as screens for the government or the very same interests that they’re meant to protect us from. The fact that the government itself often ignores them in its initiatives weakens them even further.

There is a need for deep reflection about what we, as a society, wish to attain from the endeavours of regulatory agencies which do their work as it should be done.

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Sense of proportion                              

Some people have tried to portray the problems that have arisen with regard to Pilatus Bank as a huge blow to the financial services sector in Malta. This was after some of these same people did their best to puff up the issue internationally in the media and other fora.

The problem triggered by Pilatus Bank was a serious one, naturally, and needed to be solved. Even so, one should keep a sense of proportion in its regard. The bank was a relatively small one, as were, in financial terms, the infringements attached to its operations. The accusations made in the US against the bank’s chairman related to sanctions imposed under US not international law.

While the Pilatus story was developing, huge money laundering and associated scandals emerged about wellknown European banks in Latvia, Holland and Germany. They involved many many billions of euros and dollars.

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Pigeons

Sliema residents have for long years had to bear ever increasing discomforts in their everyday lives. The worst part of this, and it continued to become more unpleasant, has been the total control that developers and building contractors enjoy over the streets and squares of the town, with their cranes and works in progress.

Recently, new discomforts have come on line with the multiplication of “wild” pigeons that have colonised districts. The amount of excrement they’re depositing on pavements and in courtyards is incredible.

Defenders of animal rights will surely dislike the only solution that exists for such a problem. When it was tried in the Cottonera district, the controversy was acute and the culling of the pigeons that had invaded the area was stopped.

It is really a pity that the pigeons are creating discomfort only for Sliema residents and visitors, and not among the contractors erecting new buildings there. Otherwise a solution would soon have been found, and then, goodbye pigeons!