The interview with former Labour prime minister and now MEP Alfred Sant (March 14) dealt with the “friends of friends” notion, giving the impression that this is something inevitable in small countries. In the annual corruption index issued by Transparency International, the upper echelon has exemplary countries like Denmark, Finland and Switzerland, in addition to other developed nations such as New Zealand and Singapore. Size is no excuse for making the pill of corruption sweeter. I had the honour of being selected to set up a telecom regulatory authority in Bermuda and be its first chief operating officer. Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of approximately 72,000 and one of the world’s highest GDPs per capita.