Zonqor: SMEs vs megacompanies

We’ve all heard it before: how SMEs are the backbone of the economy, how SMEs should be helped to flourish, and what not.

We also hear a lot about the benefits of the so called ‘free market’.

In reality however, the red carpet is laid out only for big business, which dominates the market and snuffs out struggling SMEs.

I’ll mention two examples: SMEs in the renewable energy sector and, in stark contrast, the company which wants to build a 1,000 bed hotel with some lecture rooms attached to it.

Although long term planning went out of fashion in the late eighties, probably as a reaction to the overly rigid and complex plans behind the Iron Curtain, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. SMEs in the renewable energy sector are being disadvantaged because of the lack of long term planning in the renewables sector.

Year on year they have to wait for the government to announce a scheme of subsidies on renewable energy systems. What this sector needs are schemes spread over a number of years, say five years, with the financing levels and conditions announced well in advance.

As things stand these companies cannot plan their strategies and investment in advance. If the government really wants to achieve our renewable energy targets and at the same time help SMEs in this important sector, a long term plan is urgently needed. But long term planning is probably not on, given the trend of making announcements of so called ‘projects’ in front of flag waving supporters in some kazin or other.

The attitude towards SMEs contrasts heavily with the servile attitude towards megacompanies. I won’t go into the previous government’s ridiculous propaganda regarding Smart City, or the giving away of land for hotels, or the fixation with golf courses with hotels attached to them. The current situation regarding Zonqor is just a continuation of the policies of the very recent past.

For all the talk about the ‘free’ market, one of the reasons for offering the Jordanian company land designated as a natural park is ‘feasibility’. Other people pay the full market price to invest in a shop, workspace or office.

But for Messrs. Sadeen, market prices are too high. Leo Brincat speaks as if he’s the developer’s marketing manager, and Evarist Bartolo speaks of the so-called university as if it is a public service. Smart City is just a front for the development of real estate, so is the “American University”.

These are the ideas the parliamentary parties come up with – photocopies of each other, in full colour.

Ralph Cassar is secretary general of Alternattiva Demokratika and a local councillor in H’Attard.