In a radio interview last Sunday, Minister Tonio Fenech said this is not the time to increase burdens on families.

What a cheek! Maltastar.com rightly commented editorially. “Barely 10 days since an astronomical increase in the price of bottled gas, a month and ten days from a full 15 per cent increase in the price of petrol and diesel, and during a year which saw highest prices of water and electricity bills ever as well as cost of living rising to the highest in the eurozone, Minister Fenech comes out to preach that this is not the time to increase burdens.”

The above highlights, if there is any need to highlight, the dissonance that lies at the very centre of government. What one minister sets down as a rule is then broken by the other ministers/bodies/authorities acting on their own steam with no relevance to the big picture.

Maltastar mentions fuel-related issues but there are other pressures at play that may have accompanying impacts the country’s working population.

Take construction, for instance. Only a few days ago the draft Building Regulations Act was announced. At first the public reaction questioned the wisdom of allowing neighbours to vet building plans, until Michael Falzon, writing in The Sunday Times, pointed out that had been a journalist’s mistake.

But what many bloggers never even noticed, but which was noticed by people in the construction industry was the following sentence: “The regulations will legally oblige developers to take out an insurance policy and deposit a bank guarantee of up to e40,000 to make good for any damage not covered by insurance, such as fissures or dislodged tiles in an adjoining property - the major complaint by neighbours.”

Now of course everyone knows there are more than ample reasons for the regulations to be introduced. We have all heard or experienced the negative impacts of urban development projects that those neighbouring them are saddled with for months on end - noise, dust, cranes, cracked walls, foundations being undermined and even very real dangers.

That’s on the one side. But on the other?

The other side is that most people in the construction industry - not the big firms with big projects - many times people working as a small team after (or during) working hours and taking on one small development after another, are just not liquid enough to be able to afford the up to e40,000 bank guarantee.

It is interesting to note that not even the GRTU was moved to protest about this. On the contrary, what its construction section protested about last week was just what it should have kept quiet about –the government justifiably addressing the scam through which people are given houses as a social benefit, then buying it from the government, selling it and making a tidy profit. Is it how the GRTU’s construction sector gets rich?

Nevertheless, people in the construction sector noticed the bank guarantee business and they grew, as I can testify, correspondingly gloomy. Maybe all their talk of giving up is just … talk.

I have said over and over that the country, the government, must tackle the huge problems in the construction section. There is now a glut of built, incomplete, complete, dwellings, penthouses, flats, maisonettes…whatever - they have no hope in hell of selling unless the population of Malta were to double overnight.

These people work hard, they often begin working before dawn, they work through sun, rain, wind, danger…through anything.

Sometimes, and we are very close to the black economy here, they cut corners, sometimes quite dangerous corners – washrooms that become penthouses, dwellings built without Mepa compliance certificates and thus are unable to get water or electricity connections. They get around that by connecting to a nearby garage for electricity or by using untreated second-class water for washing purposes, etc. But they are an integral, and important, part of the economy and a government that says it does not want to increase burdens must at least consider the impact of any measures in wants to introduce, even if it is more than justified, before it makes such economic segments uneconomical. Another case in point, as Maltastar mentioned, was the increase in the price of gas. Although announced, the removal of the subsidy came as a shock. It was left to GRTU, well before any reaction from the PL one may add, to point out the impact of this price increase on businesses. (There has so far not been any reaction, my editor tells me, to the story last Sunday that pointed out that no less than two government ministers had promised the subsidy on gas would remain in place when the Gasco transfer was discussed in Parliament).

Last week I spoke about a graph included in the Pre-Budget document which shows Malta has the lowest educational attainment levels in all of Europe. Since then, this story has been picked up by Anthony Manduca in The Times last Thursday and by Alfred Mifsud on our sister daily paper last Friday.

The concern is well-directed. How can this country move forward, nay, outperform our competitors, overcome our insularity-related complications and thrive in the post-recession world? There is a huge segment of the Maltese working population out there to which this refers: not just builders, or those with related skills such as plumbers, plasterers, electricians, but also those in the delivery trade, mechanics, carpenters … and all those people in retail, wholesale and in related areas.

With all due respect, it does not take much to launch oneself in these sectors – some capital, an idea of how it’s done (usually by looking at what someone else is doing), and some courage.

But then you get what we have had all over the place again and again. Shops opening in the same areas selling the same things and competing for the same customers. Houses being built among other houses being built – making them difficult to sell. Trucks and vans clogging the hot roads with ever-diminishing goods to sell and with hardly any sales to speak of, etc…

We must face up to the fact that we have the proportionately smallest working population, especially as women and the elderly are concerned. We must wake up to the fact that our population has the least educationally-qualified population in Europe. We must wake up to the fact that much of our working population, while working very hard and taking great risks, prefer to copy each other rather than come up with novel concepts. And that this harried segment of our population many times has a rather cavalier attitude to such things as taxes, regulations, the environment, quality, after-sales service, being nice to customers, etc…

Tourism is another huge segment of our economy. Even here, while we all wail and complain about decreasing numbers, we fail to see Malta as tourists see it. They do not meet people such as our readers. At most, they meet taxi drivers, cab drivers, surly and possibly non-Maltese waiters in their hotels, and dysfunctions in so many areas. True, holidays in Malta are probably cheap when booked through tour operators (although I am still not so certain as regards internet booking, not after seeing a room at a Gozo three-star hotel advertised on Expedia at e500 a night.) But even so we are not getting as many repeat tourists as we did in the jolly old sun and sea times.

And you hear so many complaints – not just about students in hotels but also about dysfunctional hotels, rusting bathrooms, not so clean rooms, etc… Once again, quality is not our forte, not at all.

So, yes, there is so much to complain about most segments of our working population. The days of protectionism are over. The recession has brought to light many of the inherent problems of attracting sales and customers, tourists and business. Times are difficult. The British are opting for staycations instead of vacations, because the sterling is low and the UK is in a recession. And Malta seems to have become naff to many, not just the British.

And yes, times are difficult, including for government, which has with enough financial to drive one mad. True, rules have to be brought in to ensure better regulation all around. But some thought must be given to their impact on smaller businesses. Government must understand it is also there to give a helping hand to so many people that by working for themselves, who are saving the government several millions in dole money, and, by employing one, two or three people, are saving the exchequer even more money. And, lastly, government must really get its act together, both on the ministerial level, where one minister says one thing only to be undermined by the next minister, but also on the lower levels by really functioning instead of sending people from pillar to post, instead of coming down like a tonne of bricks on small businessmen and not on the then big ones who know how to do their deals.

No one has a magic wand, least of all this mistake-prone government. But it is about time that the government learns to be kind to business, especially small business. While bringing in all the regulations that are needed (although we do have a tendency to be more Catholic than the Pope, especially with regards to European legislation) those regulations need to be really enforced. It must see to as well to encourage businessmen to find adequate financing, to get help when planning their business, to find trained staff, to defend them when they try to awake their staff from lethargy, while hoping that gentle persuasion and experience will wean many off hopeless ventures, and then, when they think everything is lost, encourage them to pick up and start all over again.

That is what a government is there for. Not to compete with business. Not to undermine business, ride roughshod over it, or price them out of existence.