So, the latest statistics are out and they show that more than 34,000 people live “in the Gozo and Comino area”. As my old granny used to say, “If you believe that...” 

Of course, as anybody who lives here can tell you, even with the fascinating factor of the number actually residing on Comino being reckoned within the overall figure, there is nothing like, and nowhere near, that number.

A large portion of it comprises foreigners (most of them currently not here because, for one reason or another, they are not able to get back) who spend maybe half the year in a different country but have taken up formal residency on Gozo either for an easier life or because they were told by the Maltese government to do so. (You can self-define as a tourist for only so long and then Malta requires your input by taxation.)

Their residence is, at best, part-time.

Nevertheless, they spend longer in residence than the plastici from the south island who only pretend to have changed their address in order to claim the subsidised Gozitan fare on the ferries. We call them plastici because all that has changed is the address on their plastic ID card: they live on Malta but spend lots of their weekends, and most of summer, on Gozo. So, they are counted.

Statistically, this has hidden effects.

For one thing, they create a false impression of the number or people who “live in Gozo”.

Second, they increase the number who “live in Gozo but work in Malta”.

It also means that their vote in both local and national elections is cast on Gozo.

It affects the statistical “household size” for Gozo, mostly single-person, because the families of the plastici stick to their Maltese addresses, since only the car driver needs to pretend to be a local resident.

So, if we deduct the phoney Gozitans and the absentee foreign “residents”, we are down to how many? 

The National Statistics Office has no way of knowing, nor do I. But I’d be prepared to bet that the number of genuine, actual, full-time Gozo residents was much nearer to 25,000 than to 35,000, if anybody could come up with a way of finding an accurate method of counting.

I have distrusted ‘statistics’ since when I employed polling companies that always asked me what figures I would like them to find- Revel Barker

The other 9,000 or 10,000 people are not here most of the time. Hardly any at all of them, this year, because they can’t get on board an aeroplane.

Does it really matter? Well, yes, it does, because a census is the best way – provided it can be done properly – of evaluating what an area of population needs in regard to things like healthcare, education and public transport. It should be important for assessing the need for industry, too, although little seems to be getting done about that.

And it’s vital always to remember that if a count were taken on Gozo mid-summer, it might well show a temporary population closer to 60,000, which should be (but isn’t) taken into account when considering matters like roads and, especially, parking space.

The basic headcount should also direct attention towards the amount of rubbish collection: how much and with what frequency. Here’s a tip: collect all colours of bags, and bottles, on Monday mornings because (it appears to have gone unnoticed by the authorities) more people leave the island on a Sunday night than at any other time.

Time for full disclosure, here. I have distrusted “statistics” since the days when I employed polling companies that always asked me, at the start, what figures I would like them to find.

I have distrusted them even more in Malta since reading, some years ago, that 85 per cent of Gozitans wanted a tunnel in preference to the ferries when my own (amateur but genuinely random) poll showed exactly the opposite figure, that is, 85 per cent did not want a tunnel.

We must assume, nonetheless, that the National Statistics Office has done its job honestly.

It’s not them, but the figures, that don’t tell the truth.

Revel Barker, former UK journalist

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