The security of Maltese people has been systematically compromised while the country’s reputation has been tarnished worldwide as a result of the endemic corruption that has gripped the country ever since the Labour Party took office.
A recent eye-popping allegation of bribery and corruption into which a magisterial inquiry is to be launched concerns the alleged fraudulent pocketing of €60 million in bribes for the issue of an estimated 18,000 false identity cards to third-country nationals on the basis of falsified documents. The magnitude of such an alleged fraud exceeds any previous fraud involving a single government agency or department.
Each of these third-country nationals allegedly paid between €2,000 and €10,000 for an identity card that entitles its holder to live and work in Malta and travel freely within the Schengen area.
Despite having known about this racket for two years, the police failed to take action while Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri remained tight-lipped on the issue.
In reality, the exploitation of foreign workers begins before they even set foot in the country.
Recruitment agencies charge them an exorbitant administrative fee that can be as high as €10,000 to secure a job for them, and, to raise the money, these individuals often require to sell family property or take predatory loans.
The exploitation continues once the third-country nationals arrive in the country due to excessively high prices that they are charged by landlords for the rent of residencies that often lack space and privacy.
Despite having the lowest fertility rate in all 27 EU countries, Malta had the steepest population growth with the number of inhabitants increasing by staggering 141,979 over a period of 11 years to reach a population of 563,443 by the end of last year.
The government created havoc in the country by its failure to upgrade the infrastructure and strengthen the education and healthcare sectors to meet the massive ever-increasing rise in foreign nationals. The country experienced serious repercussions that include a collapse of the healthcare system, low student academic achievement, traffic congestion, housing problems, power failures and sewage overflows into a number of bays.
Former prime minister Joseph Muscat contended that the massive importation of unskilled foreign workers was the solution to the country’s fast economic growth. He argued that these workers pay national insurance contributions without benefitting from a pension and threatened Maltese workers with the loss of their pension unless foreign workers continue flocking into the country.
Muscat made it adamantly clear that his intention was to take advantage of the precarious situation of third-country nationals when he said that they were being brought over to work in the sun and break their backs doing unskilled jobs such as picking up rubbish in the streets.
Muscat’s economy built on cheap labour favours big developers and other business operators who purportedly pump hundreds of thousands of euros into the Labour Party.
A particular human resource supply company whose director is known to have close long-term ties to the Labour Party was awarded a €10 million direct order by a government agency and has been raking in over a million euros a year in commissions for supplying employees on low wages.
Robert Abela would not do anything that negatively affects the massive profits of big developers- Denis Tanti
In their greed for money, company owners are known to abuse third-country nationals by pushing them to work longer hours for a minimum wage or less while denying them of conditions of work enjoyed by Maltese workers. And, last year, 1,695 Maltese-registered companies were discovered to have illegally employed third-country nationals.
Back in 2014, Clyde Caruana, who today is finance minister, was appointed executive chairperson of the country’s employment agency and tasked with implementing Muscat’s economic model. During the five years and eight months that he served in this position the number of foreign workers increased by 70,000.
Caruana fast-tracked the work permits of thousands of Turkish construction workers who were housed in makeshift containers turned to living spaces and paid measly wages. These workers were engaged on massive construction projects for Maltese developers.
To dupe the people, Caruana came out with the preposterous idea that Maltese families could benefit from the influx of foreign construction workers as they could build residencies for domestic renting that would provide them with a high source of income.
Ironically, after becoming finance minister, Caruana declared Muscat’s economic model unsustainable and insisted that it should be overhauled without delay. This suggestion was however dismissed as mere speculation by Prime Minister Robert Abela who saw to it that the influx of foreign workers would continue as the number shot up from under 70,000 in 2019 to 107,406 a year ago.
Labour’s vote haemorrhage in the European and local council elections of June 8 appears to have served as a wake-up call for Abela. He suddenly realised that the earnings of Maltese cab service providers had dropped significantly after they were outpriced by foreign cab companies that rely on the service of foreign drivers and food couriers.
Abela tackled this by banning new work permits in this sector, which led to fewer available workers and, consequently, an increase in prices for consumers.
Abela, however, did not ban or limit work permits for foreign construction workers, despite their number having increased dramatically by more than 70 per cent over the past five years to more than 10,500. On the contrary, in the latest EURES (European Network of Employment Services) report it was stated that Malta is facing a shortage of workers in this sector.
Abela does not seem to be worried about the downward pressure of the low wages paid to foreign construction workers and the effects on Maltese workers.
Of course, Abela would not do anything that negatively affects the massive profits of big developers who depend heavily on foreign labour, considering that they have the Labour Party in their pockets.
The government has failed miserably in addressing the exploitative practices which third-country nationals are being subjected to as well as the serious problems to people’s well-being as a result of the steep increase in population.
The legal notice put in force last June to regulate employment agencies is too little, too late.
Denis Tanti is a former assistant director at the health ministry.