The following cannot be considered a popular point of view.

Yet, current circumstances are such that we urgently need to ensure once and for all, that the island’s security forces – the army and the police – are considerably upgraded. This can only happen if a long term plan to really improve the structures and operations of the two corps is implemented, and not just in words, as has been the case up to now.

The most important move, beyond updating and strengthening the material resources which security forces dispose of, is to subject recruitment at all levels of the corps to more stringent educational requirements. Post the recruitment stage, extensive training in modern security procedures still needs to be given on an ongoing basis.

We do not have to try reinvent the wheel when acting on these issues. We just need to study and adopt other people’s models, with due attention of course to make sure that the particular conditions of this island are taken into account.

One thing is clear: Pay and other remuneration should be adjusted to reflect the new ways by which national security has to be safeguarded.

As terrorism gains ground by adopting no holds barred methods, we cannot ignore the priority of providing for effective security. Nor can we remain complacent about the prevailing state of affairs: enforcement of the laws in all fields of activity remains remarkably absent here.    

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Consumers

Serious deficiencies still prevail in consumer protection.

These are cases that recently, I have heard mentioned and which were left pending, to the detriment of consumers:

--respectable shopping outlets still sell food products beyond their expiry date;

--furniture on order is delivered late, with parts missing, others wrongly slotted or mislaid, while technicans needed to install furniture are sent to do so a week after actual delivery;

--banking instructions are ignored, implemented with a delay or mistakenly.

Now it is true: on the last point I personally encountered the same problem in Brussels during the last year. I fail to find that this is any consolation. 

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Sonny Borg

Though best known as the founder of Bortex, Sonny Borg was one of the master builders of modern Malta.

On three occasions I worked closely with him.

The first time was at the end of the seventies/ beginning of the eighties of the previous century. We both served as deputy chairmen of the Malta Development Corporation, now Malta Enterprise. Over and above the political rifts of the time, a deep economic recession was brewing, including a general decline in investment and sales. The government, the unions, the private sector all were reluctant to face reality.

The second time was when I replaced him as chairman of Bortex for two years. The company was then already plunging into a huge crisis, perhaps the greatest of its existence.

And the third was when he became my partner in a project to issue a monthly English language magazine called “Tomorrow”. It was hardly a big success, but in Malta it broke new ground by presenting facts-based reporting of a certain kind. Today, we have learned to do this much better than was the case thirty years or more ago,

Sonny was an astute, humane, far-sighted leader.