From the online comments

Prices of 400 food items to be reduced by 15% from February 1

What this actually means is that the taxpayer will be subsidising the small shops that will reduce prices by reducing their profits so that the large importers and wholesalers will keep their profits intact. A new version of inverted bulk buying taking this country back to the 1970s.

I believe the way it will work will be:

1. Importers and wholesalers will keep their mark-ups and profits.

2. The small retailers will reduce their profit.

3. The taxpayers will subsidise the small retailers with the difference.

4. The small retailers, knowing which products, other than from the proposed list, sell more in their area, will just increase their prices to cover for the expected loss.

5. The taxpayers will, therefore, be subsidising the small retailers twice.

Interesting to note that not all the small retailers will ‘participate’ in this fraud, because fraud it is, but some.

Obviously, the question which arises is: Who are these who are participating? Where does their ‘loyalty’ lie? Very doubtful if it is with their customers. – K. Pace

Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

So this is what we have arrived to? Why don’t you reintroduce the ration book, as it seems we’re not far away from that situation. Is there so much poverty in this country that the government has to intervene on basic necessities?

The Central Bank of Malta has already confirmed that the welfare gap between the rich and the low-income earners has grown disproportionately.

What hurts more is the fact that this is happening under the workers’ party.

U ħallina prim. Why don’t you set sail on your luxury boat to some unknown island and stay there? – Joe A. Borg

Robert Abela turns the clock back to the 1980s. A similar system was used by Dom Mintoff in the early 1980s to cap the prices, including of fresh local fruits and vegetables sold through the Pitkali, during the socialist wage freeze era. Prices used to be publicised twice a week and the consumers were expected to follow the lists and report those retailers asking for higher prices.

This scheme will fail and will be abandoned shortly after the June MEP and local council elections. But, in the meantime, the Labour Party would have reaped some political mileage, badly needed in view of an expected number of protest voters. – M. M. Calleja

Should be a step in the right direction. Yet, still the usual naysayers are as negative as ever. But, then, what to expect since it is not the government of their choice. – J. Brincat

What this means is one simple thing. That RRPs and not actual prices will go down so that the COLA basket stays stable and we do not get a repeat of last year’s COLA increases. But, in real fact, your price at the till will just remain the same as it is today as supermarkets rarely if ever charge at the RRP of any good. – Adrian Zahra

These measures are totally unnecessary in a country where, according to the former prime minister, we have all become little rich men.

Rather than reducing the price of corned beef by a few pennies, the prime minister should try to reduce the inflation rate of property. He should tackle traffic, education and healthcare.

But, at least, we live in a country where canned tuna prices are stable.

Amateurs. – Edwin Mifsud