A survey published earlier this week by the Malta Chamber of SMEs sheds light on the thoughts and concerns of businesses.

Among the questions asked to respondents, was for them to highlight the two most important issues that the country is facing and which they would like the Government to do something about.

The answers aren’t surprising at all, given that the top three responses are issues that, for years and years, the Labour Government has not done enough to deal with. The primary contributors to business concerns when it comes to the national situation, as across all sectors, continues to be the lack of good governance and the level of corruption, the Chamber said in a statement. The third was overpopulation.

Scandal after scandal after scandal, that is the track record of the Labour party over the past years, the major ones being the Panama Papers, 17 Black, the hospitals saga, the benefits racket, the driving licenses scandal, and the list goes on. The sheer amount is unbelievable, and yet they just keep on coming.

A culture of impunity was created that resulted in the assassination of a journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Just this week, a group of NGOs and a major trade union banded together calling for yet another public inquiry to be launched, this time into an alleged social benefits racket cover-up. Given the allegations, one is needed, and the Prime Minister should launch the inquiry.

Faith in the enforcement authorities is not high. After all, the Vitals saga had to be investigated by a Magistrate on request by a civil society group, because the police had not seemed to be doing anything about it.

There have been calls to beef up the Permanent Commission against Corruption by PN MP Karol Aquilina, to give it more teeth. Why not do so?

There have been calls for the Police Commissioner to be appointed by a 2/3rds Parliamentary majority. Why not do so? Over recent years this country has seen its fair share of Commissioners who were seen to be too close to the Government. It’s about time that people appointed to this post are done so through a method of appointments that has the backing of all of Parliament.

Moving on to the overpopulation problem, the Government has started to make moves to try and get things under control, but it is still failing to tackle major issues, such as the traffic problem, which is not going to be solved by road widening, and the uglification of the Island through planning policies that have failed to preserve the heart of Malta. The authorities have failed the people in this regard, and it resulted in the construction of buildings which aren’t even aesthetically pleasing to look at. It’s a scandal in and of itself.