The EU’s efforts to develop its capital markets remain an ongoing story. In the US, investments are mainly mobilised by companies which attract the private funds that they need to operate  by selling shares to the “public”. The monies they reap from share offers give those who buy shares an ownership claim. On shares, companies do not pay interest. If they fail to make profits, those who have bought shares get no payback. If profits are made, they get a cut.

Matters work out differently in Europe. Most firms prefer to borrow from the banks to organise  their businesses and investments. This means they have to pay interest on what they borrow, no mattter what happens. In past years, interest rates were really low. Recently, they have gone up and will stay this way.

Scant success has been recorded in trying to prompt European companies to adopt the US model in running their finances. And in fact, those European companies which have been taking on board the American model, are actually transfering to the US to implement it!

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PRIVATISATION

The privatisation of government companies is no longer considered as the best approach by which to promote efficiency in public services. Or do people still think this way?

Actually some still believe that if government sells off its operations to the private sector, it would be ensuring that projects which under government management are doing badly will under private management become star performers.

How naive. The first activities that got privatised in Malta were the so-called “public works” run by the government. Under the first Fenech Adami administration they were dismantled as a government structure and the jobs they did were transfered to the private sector. Today government hives off its building projects in tenders to the private sector.

Is there anybody who still believes that this has led to an improvement in efficiency? Or that waste has thereby been reduced?

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DISCIPLINED CORPS

Disciplined corps were set up to implement activities that safeguard public security and cannot be allowed to falter. Right from the start, those who joined for this work received more favourable wage and pension conditions than were enjoyed by other workers. After 25 years of service, one could retire with a more than adequate pension. But as workers in a disciplined corps, they could not strike  and could be called to report for work outside office hours whenever an emergency was declared.

These days, much of the distinction between the work of the disciplined forces and that of the rest of the public service seems to have been rubbed off. Work that ensures for citizens the best protection by way of security deserves to be subject to special conditions both by way of the obligations that result from the nature of the work at hand, as well then as by way of the benefits it is granted.  Even so, a mechanism has to be available that is free of all interference to ensure that when complaints arise about how workers in the sectors concerned are being dealt with, such complaints are decided without delay in a just and impartial manner.