Thank you from India

I would like to thank the Mission Fund for its donation of €2,500, of which €500 are for Mass intentions and €2,000 for subsidising biblical and religious material in Santali, the language of the largest tribe in India, the Santals.

I have been in India for the last 63 years and, since my priestly ordination, I have been working most of the time as a parish priest among the Santals. Santal Parganas is the homeland of the Santals but, forced by poverty, they have migrated to many other northern states in India and settled there.

The Santal Catholics are now spread out in 17 other dioceses and these in the diaspora rely on us from the homeland to give them biblical and religious material in Santali. For the last few years, I have been put in charge of this ministry of religious publications.

Early this year, we reprinted another 2,000 prayer books and 2,000 hymn books, apart from some other religious books. We have just reprinted the Altar Lectionery in Santali in two volumes. Volume three will also be reprinted. The three volumes consist of about 3,000 pages.

This year, due to an increase in tax, in the cost of paper and in workers’ wages, the cost of printing increased dramatically. As most of these poor people cannot afford to buy the publications even at cost price, we have to subsidise them. The donation received from the Mission Fund will be used for this purpose.

I would like to encourage the Maltese people to send used stamps and donations to the Mission Fund, which helps so many Maltese missionaries in Third World countries.

Donations may be made online or by direct bank transfer to one of the following accounts: HSBC (Account no. 061 197 448 050); BOV (Account no. 163 007 980 19); APS (Account no. 200 008 207 62), or BANIF (Account no. 000 879 631 01). More information is available from the website www.missionfund.org.mt.

Fr Jos. M. Gauci Sacco, SJ – Dumka, Jharkhand, India.

Post, but not post-haste

A Maltapost branch in Victoria. Photo: Shutterstock.com

I am old enough to remember the time when, if you went early enough to the post box, a letter sent to a Gozo address in the morning would be delivered by lunchtime on the same day.

When the service was ‘improved’, Maltapost could still claim that 96 per cent of local mail was delivered the next day.

More recent ‘improvements’ have meant that parcels and registered letters are not delivered at all. For example, when the €100 vouchers were sent out by registered mail, which, presumably, was at a high cost even for the government, the majority of recipients were left a note saying that, since nobody was at home, they should collect the letter from their post office. (I hate to point this out but the government, therefore,  simply wasted its money.)

When I buy books online, I usually pay more in postage than the price of the book; then I get a note saying it couldn’t be delivered because I wasn’t in.

Here’s the thing: I haven’t been out since March.

Most people I speak to have a similar experience. (Except that, this year, I received no vouchers at all. I didn’t even get a note.)

Maltapost should be told that when people are in lockdown, (whether forced or voluntary), they are likely to be at home. And they would appreciate the home delivery of a parcel or a registered letter.

The posties need to get off their bikes and actually deliver. It’s the service that we, or somebody else, have paid for.

Revel Barker – Għajnsielem

Wardens should not issue contraventions for now

It is bad enough that 2020 was a demanding year for all of us. Now that Christmas has arrived, many of us have found solace in going to shop for our Christmas presents.

However, the atmosphere is unfortunately marred by the ever-present local warden, who fails to understand that more people tend to congregate in shopping areas at this time of year.

Local councils should advise wardens to stop issuing contraventions for the time being. It has been a bad year and people don’t want the situation to get worse by being fined.

We all know that lodging a petition with the Local Enforcement Systems Agency (LESA) is normally a waste of time as they usually decline to overturn a fine, without giving any proper explanation.

If you do find the time to go to a tribunal, you are usually shouted at and treated like a child.

David Demajo – Sliema

The National Bank of Malta saga

Over the past few months, this newspaper has featured several notices by the Registrar of Companies listing companies that have been deemed to be dissolved resulting in their name being struck off the register.

Various company names have made me recollect the persons behind the companies concerned with whom I became acquainted and had the pleasure of serving in my banking days.

However, for quite different reasons, I noticed with sadness that the National Bank of Malta (C443) and Tagliaferro Bank Ltd (C1400) were among the company names that were listed recently.

This brings to mind the fact that the NBM’s shareholders are still waiting for justice to be done after over 45 years of legal wrangling in court.

Anthony Curmi – St Julian’s

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