At present we are being confronted with the other side of the coin of having big, sometimes monopolistic companies, the so-called flagships for an economy. In good times, yes they seem to be successful. But during a downturn these tend to drag down a whole economy.

Malta, where ‘big’ is a relative term, presents no exception. In our economy several companies offering services in utilities, construction, ports, flight and telecommunications enjoy a dominant position, sometimes with less than one thousand workers. Big companies in other sectors never cease to exert pressure on the government of the day.

President Obama is currently trying to find a solution whereby such big banks, for instance, do not end up as the grave for billions in taxpayers’ money as has been the case during the past year. In Malta we are doing the opposite even though we have been more than twice bitten by large companies such as the dockyard. Now that transport is to be reorganised, one new big and monopolistic company is about to emerge. The same could be said for the Gozo channel transport. Real competition is excluded at an early stage.

The formation of new huge and promising smart constellations does not augur well for the future. Such constellations already prove too big to fail in their creation phase and they exploit their dominating position to dictate prices for all their suppliers including the state. Moreover, their supply must be prompt and have priority against all others. And then we hear ministers telling us that such companies ought to have their operational costs guaranteed and on top of that they should also be allowed to make a reasonable profit on their investments.

But in a country where the state dominates a whole economy one cannot expect better. For our authorities competition seems to mean: How to extract more from taxpayers’ pockets to compensate for past and present failures.

Agnes Debono

Kercem