The Sunday Times of Malta June 13, 2004

Illegal satellite dish tax - Week 2

Adrian Muscat Inglott

As promised, we will continue featuring a letter every week until the illegal satellite dish tax is removed. In last week's letter, sent in by Ray Ellul, various addresses of sites related to the issue were included.

Unfortunately, for some reason, the underscores did not come through so here are the respective addresses again:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/servi...
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/te...
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/cnc/2001/com20...

This week's letter was sent in by Dr Mark Bugeja who was the first to draw my attention to the matter nine months ago:

"At this stage, I cannot add anything more other than my expression of bewilderment at a government that has been so fervent in its drive to get Malta into the EU and yet fails to implement EU laws and regulations fully.

Member states cannot pick and choose what to apply! I am also quite perplexed at how Dr Simon Busuttil succeeds to speak out the way he does, and for which he has my utmost admiration and respect, and yet comes out strong from among the PN's elite!

May I, through your column, invite readers to visit (and interact with) my Website dedicated to the satellite dish tax as well as other issues. The url is: http://www.oocities.org/infomalta2004/index.html

The subject is further dealt with on another page in the Website: http://www.oocities.org/infomalta2004/satdishfees.html where I have taken the liberty to reproduce the article featured in your column last Sunday. I hope this will meet with your approval." (Mark Bugeja, MD)

I thank Dr Bugeja for his contribution and he is welcome to reproduce last Sunday's article in his Website.

Well, this is Week 2 of our campaign against the satellite dish tax. As I explained last Sunday, we must stick and work together. I do believe that the publication of a letter a week would eventually do the trick. Therefore if you disagree with the satellite dish tax, write to me.

While thanking all those who have already sent in their messages, I thank those who will be sending in their messages shortly. You can either e-mail your contribution to consumercolumn@maltanet.net or else post it to the address featured below.

I appeal to readers to refrain from asking me to advise them as to whether they should pay the tax or not. I am also receiving messages asking me to advise readers not to pay the tax. I must make it crystal-clear that I am not in a position to advise you not to pay the tax. Indeed this is why we are running this campaign - to get the law changed. After all, let's face it, the law is there to be abided by.

We are civilised and I do not intend to promote the law of the jungle. What we need from you is to send us letters similar to the two we have featured so far so that we can persuade the authorities to remove this law in accordance with EU laws.

Our objective in this campaign is to keep the issue alive for as long as it takes to persuade whoever is in a position to remove the satellite dish tax to do so. Your participation is solicited. We must work together as consumers while maximising on our right to be heard.

Please note the clear statements and meaningful messages delivered in the two letters featured so far. I urge you to emulate Mr Ellul and Dr Bugeja in your letters on this issue. While bearing in mind all the hard work that went into our efforts to join the club, if we want to be considered worthy of being members, at the very least, we ought to abide by, and indeed respect, the rules.