520,000 and counting

Last March, the National Statistics Office announced that according to the last census, taken on November 2021, Malta’s population had reached 516,000. This is nearly 100,000 over the population size recorded for the 2011 census.

With a population of about 516,000 over an area of 316 square kilometres, Malta is the world’s tenth-smallest country in area and fourth most densely populated sovereign nation.

Malta’s population has been increasing at a steady rate over the last ten years - a rate somewhat dented during the two years when COVID took over the world. Now it seems that COVID is being ignored by all and sundry as a result of the introduction of vaccines protecting humans from the viral infection.

The impact of this population increase is tremendous. Yet no one reacted to the news about our population increase.

Meanwhile, we keep importing nationals of third countries to work in Malta, while citizens from the other EU states keep coming to work or set up shop in Malta.

This has contributed to more income for the government in terms of NI contributions, VAT and – to a lesser degree – incomee tax. But, we keep on acting as if our population density is no serious matter, with the government behaving as if this annual increase in population has only a positive side. Yet there is also the flipside of this coin. But nobody seems to care.

Those who say we are ‘full up’ are just bigots assuming an anti-immigrant stance that is heavily biased with racism. They say we are full up for African immigrants while EU nationals are welcomed to work in Malta. Now we also have a large influx of imported Asian labour, without which many State and private entities would not be able to survive.

On a separate issue, the recent research findings published by the Jesuit Refugee Service and the Aditus Foundation have led to the conclusion that illegal immigrants or refugees (whatever one chooses to call them) should be allowed to have jobs that are above board.

In the current circumstances, this makes a lot of sense, considering that in Malta’s labour market, employers keep on pushing for the importation of relatively cheap labour, mostly from Asia. I do not agree that these immigrants should be immediately given the right to vote, however, but this is another argument.

The recent revelation that (Sir) Mo Farah – real name Hussein Abdi Kahin – was trafficked to the UK as a boy to work as a servant puts to shame racists all over the world who oppose the settlement of foreigners in their country. He changed his name and made up imaginary details about his moving to the UK and then became a British four-time Olympic champion.

But I digress from my main argument. This refers to the lack of vision of our politicians who do not seem to be realising that Malta’s economy has entered into a vicious circle where foreign labour is chasing job vacancies created by our ever-expanding economy. When these vacancies are filled, they eventually lead to the expansion of State and private entities needing even more foreign labour.

The list of such circumstances is endless. We now have agencies that supply foreign workers to those who need them. Our tourist, catering and hospitality industries – originally created to provide jobs for the Maltese – are now completely dependent on foreign workers. State entities like Wasteserv depend on foreign workers. Our hospital facilities cannot survive without foreign workers.

Malta needs a serious plan that is aimed at breaking this vicious circle whereby engaging foreign labour is leading to increase the need for foreign labour.

Meanwhile – as cynics would surely say – many Maltese are employed with State entities and paid for doing nothing in the great tradition of Labour governments.

The real problem is Malta’s size and the resulting population density. Racism has nothing to do with this. Those who sincerely protest about the ever-increasing physical development of the populated areas and the threat to areas that are outside development zones should also look at the background to the big picture – the increasing population density of our country.

Government should embark on a consultation exercise in its search to find yet another economic model that considers our population density as the main stumbling block to Malta’s development.

But the current administration is just doing nothing about this.

So long as its supporters are happy receiving unearned gifts and being paid for doing nothing, the government is happy, while the spiral of jobs chasing foreign labour and foreign labour chasing jobs, keeps going on, Dubai style. Except that, unlike Dubai, Malta does not have any area to spare.

An axis of spite

An axis of spite seems to have taken over a substantial part of Malta’s media. Mostly driven by frustrated people, their hate has even taken over the original reason for hating.

The history of mankind teaches us that hate is a strong emotion – much stronger than love and tolerance and pointless hate has led to the downfall of many human societies. This happened even in countries where the majority were Christian, albeit Christianity preaches love and tolerance.

In the last few days, I have been subjected to an exercise of pointless hate – an exercise built maliciously on manipulation of facts, selective quotations, half-truths and outright lies.

I write my weekly contribution to this newspaper without any hidden agenda. I try to give my honest opinion on some news item or some development in Malta or elsewhere. I do not plan my articles long-term because I do this as a hobby and not as part of some vicious game of chess, where one move is done in anticipation of an expected opponent’s retaliatory move for which one has already planned how to react.

My articles do not have hidden agendas, unlike the articles of those who accuse me of having hidden agendas. I am what I am, warts and all.

Some people agree with what I write and there are people who disagree. Unfortunately some of these tend to be ‘ad hominem’ – they disagree because I wrote it and for no other reason.

The majority do not care a fig about my writings or anybody else’s, anyway.