Undeclared work

May I bring to the attention of readers the Employment and Training Corporation's latest efforts in its fight against undeclared work. In August a committee made up of representatives of the ETC, the Ministry of Social Policy, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Services and the Ministry of Education was set up in order to draw up and plan a national campaign against undeclared work. This is necessitated by the EU Employment Guideline No. 9 as decided by the EU council on July 22, 2003, which states:

"Member states should develop and implement broad actions and measures to eliminate undeclared work, which combine simplification of the business environment, removing disincentives and providing appropriate incentives in the tax and benefits system, improved law enforcement and the application of sanctions. They should undertake the necessary efforts at national and EU level to measure the extent of the problem and progress achieved at national level."

Thanks to this committee, data which help each organisation fight undeclared work, tax evasion or fraud in social benefit claims are being exchanged. This is resulting in much fruitful desk investigation which our law compliance unit staff are thoroughly carrying out to reach the culprits.

As part of this exercise of data exchange, lately the Ministry of Social Policy passed on to ETC a list of 56 persons found working by inspectors of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority on several work sites. Out of these 56, ETC has found that one has been registering since January this year, four others were found to be unemployed but not registering while another four could not be traced in the employment register because they probably gave false personal details.

This exchange of data came after ETC gave to the Ministry of Social Policy the list of persons found illegally working in Gozo last August. Then it was found that two of the illegal workers were receiving invalidity pensions which completely preclude them from working.

Thus, inspections carried out by other government entities are becoming more fruitful. In this way we are discovering that there only exists one black economic world and the law breaker on one side may be the registered unemployed claiming social benefits on the other side.

Moreover, ETC held recently a training seminar for its six law compliance inspectors and clerical staff to understand better this reality of undeclared work. Officials from the Malta Tourism Authority, the Department of Social Security, the Tax Compliance Unit, the VAT department, the police force and the National Employment Authority addressed those present on the pertaining realities they meet during their inspections. This exercise has firmly promised that what our small number of inspectors is not achieving by inspection is being attained through desk investigation.

May I take this opportunity to appeal to readers' cooperation and urge them to report any abuses of job seekers working while being registered as unemployed on ETC unemployment books; employment of workers without the necessary ETC engagement forms; employment of children under 16 years of age and employment of foreigners without the necessary working permit.

Readers can report such abuses anonymously on our free phone 800 76501.