Opinion • February 1 2004

Tricksters and tricked

The Priceclub owners gave the wrong impressions to reporters, and MaltaToday was one of the gullible victims, Saviour Balzan writes

When this newspaper kicked off, MaltaToday inherited a number of so-called writers. How they had found themselves at a newsdesk beats me. One particular journalist was constantly coming up with the same recycled stories about the Priceclub supermarket chain.
We followed the old adage: if someone is saying it, then the story must be a solid one, and we will carry it.
We followed the trail, to a certain extent taking the side of Priceclub and fuelling the false impression that Malta’s leading retail outlet was in safe hands, and that if there was a storm it would soon pass away.
It was as far from the truth as one can now imagine.
Now that the other side to the story has emerged, we are serialising the story, and with some extra care I would say.
True, the story has been driven by the report drawn up by a certain John Zarb of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and his comments have not been too kind to the audit firm that was involved at an early stage with Priceclub - an audit firm which by the way, are in direct competition with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
However, the truth is that the story about Priceclub hovers around hardworking small businesses that went bust, or close to bankruptcy, because of monies that were never paid by Priceclub’s owners to these suppliers and creditors.
It also focuses on the fact that as Priceclub was losing money, the directors of the supermarket giant continued to live a very relaxed and normal life.
This is what makes it so revolting. It also proves that when the going gets tough, it is always the small guys that suffer the most.
Now, in this kind of job one receives countless letters, rebukes and warnings with the clear message: "We will take you to court and run you down." And fighting out these battles in court is a thankless affair, more often than not lost in procedural and dysfunctional legal discourse with little relevance to the facts.
But we are here to deliver the news and report the truth…

… which is not Tony Zarb’s ominous warning to Government, the stale leitmotif now being "we will rock you," but who the next leader of the Nationalist Party will in fact be.
Because irrespectively of who will eventually be chosen, this country needs to take some damn hard decisions.
It is not only the economic field that needs attention but equally so, the social field. Malta needs someone who has a track record of dealing firmly with difficult situations and presenting ‘bad news’ to a nation in order to improve its long-term prospects.

Last week, I was listening to Parliament on 106.6FM. Labour MP Jose Herrera was evidently irate at the proposed law to have obligatory state-appointed mediators to remedy marriages experiencing breakdowns.
A lawyer with some experience in representing clients with failed marriages, Herrera recounted how couples who were never going to reconcile were now facing having mediators appointed by the state, trying to convince them to kiss and make up.
Herrera is correct in his assessment that the state should not intervene in this matter. Thumbs up to Dr Herrera. The government would do us all a favour if it wakes up to the realities of reneging on the fact that the state is not big brother, and it certainly is not the church. It is bad enough already having a church so grossly detached from reality as it is.
So good old traditional solid marriages are fine things to talk about… but the state is not here to promulgate 1950s re-enactments of Doris Day’s ‘happy families’. It is here to adapt to societal changes and provide the necessary tools for change.