As long as the government continues to allow a system whereby everybody can set up a business or work without making the employment registration number obligatory, the government will continue to be an accomplice to undeclared work. And if the authorities do not know what I am referring to, than it means that these authorities are not worthy of their name.
Example no 1: People at the VAT department are allowed to register for a VAT number without producing documentation that they are registered on the ETC records as such. This means that in this day and age of Information Technology, yes, there are persons conducting their business with a VAT number but who not registered with the ETC records as working. I would not be surprised if some of them are also registering for work.
The Commissioner of VAT has his mind at rest because there is nothing in the VAT law which binds him to request such information, and the Ministry of Social Policy on the other hand does not make it a pre-requisite for VAT registration.
If this is not complicity, then I do not know what can we call it.
Example no 2: The government allows the importation of water bowsers and of trucks for the use of skips without requiring the person or persons importing them prove that they are registered in the ETC books. The result is that there are people out there running around in bowsers and in trucks which are used to lift the skips registering for unemployment and having a contract with works with government agencies such as WasteServe Limited.
Because unless you have not noticed, these agencies do not ask their suppliers to get them documentation proving that they are registered with the ETC as workers or as self-employed because the law does not oblige them to do that. But it is not fair that these workers, at the taxpayers’ expense, not only work without paying taxes and social security contributions, but there are some of them who also receive unemployment benefit.
Unless the government introduces a law across the board that whoever provides a service and/or offers a service must produce his employment registration number, the government will continue to be an accomplice in unemployment.
Example no. 3: There are employment agencies in Malta and I do not know how many of them are registered with ETC. There are employment agencies which engage Maltese to work on the oil rigs. It seems odd but it is true that there are employment agencies which manage to arrange for these workers not to appear to be employed in the ETC books. How they do it I do not know, but these things are happening in Malta and it is the responsibility of the ETC to ensure that all employment agencies including those on the internet are licensed, and that their recruits are registered with ETC.
Example no 4: Vacancies and situations wanted – none of them make their ETC registration obligatory so that people work from home or in homes without being bound to prove that they are registered as working for ETC purposes.
No wonder that the consumers prefer to engage these people because they can work for less, and it is no secret that many self-employed, especially those in the hair-dressing, beauty and massage business, prefer to close their licensed business and work from and in homes without the hassle of having to pay licenses, water and electricity tariffs, VAT, tax, etc, etc.
All this can be avoided if the law obliges the advertiser to publish the ETC authorization meaning the employment registration number.
Example no 5: This regards the granting of loans and overdrafts. How can banks continue to provide such facilities to unemployed people? Why is it that if your bank manager is your friend you can be given these facilities even if you are unemployed?
The same applies to companies in which shareholders and directors are all unemployed, if not registering for work.
Of course there is no law which binds the banks to do this, but it stands to reason that an unemployed person cannot be allowed to do business even if he gets good security unless he can prove that he is gainfully and lawfully occupied.
I must not omit to remind you that directors of companies in Malta are not treated as workers at law, and so they are not registered in the records of ETC as workers. This means that you can be unemployed and registering for unemployment benefits and yet do business in a number of companies which may have an overdraft and assets exceeding millions of euros.
Example no 6: The Registrar of Companies can register companies of persons who are unemployed and who can be registering for work, for all that matter because his law does not preclude him from doing so.
I am not going to go through the sorry state that the register of companies in Malta is in – with companies that were in liquidation 30 years ago, and with the names of liquidators who have died still appearing as the liquidators; with companies being allowed to continue to trade notwithstanding that they have not submitted their annual returns for ages; with companies mushrooming without any control, and where shareholders and directors who are in default continue to open other companies as if nothing has happened.
What I am concerned about is that the law must be amended so that the Registrar will not be allowed to register companies of shareholders and directors who are unemployed, because it is not fair on those workers who go by the book and not fair on the ETC which works hard to curb abuses and unemployment.
Example No 7: No such declarations are requested in any bonds issue. They are oversubscribed in minutes and there is no control as to whether the subscribers are gainfully occupied or not. The banks are not obliged to refuse deposits from persons who are not gainfully occupied and once this money is deposited in the bank it is clean money in our law.
We are kept in the dark as to who is putting what in these bond issues, which although unsecured, still attract people who are ready to invest their money although they have no guarantee that they will get what they invested.
But our MFSA sees nothing wrong with this, nor any reason why the law should be changed so that these investors are registered with ETC as having a job.
It is true that the banks are strong in Malta and the American trauma is not going to happen here, but I can bet that it will in the near future we will see it happening as regards the bonds subscription. Such bonds (or better, unsecured loans) are not regulated and if the banks required securities before granting a loan or an overdraft, in the bonds issue there is no security at all.
But going back to unemployment, and if Minister Dalli wants to curb unemployment, all he has to do is to push the computer button which will tell him how many VAT-registered users are registered as unemployed, how many directors and shareholders are unemployed, how many overdrafts and loans are given to unemployed persons, how many people having a trading licence are unemployed, how many people having a student accommodation licence are unemployed, or even receiving social security benefits; and how many assets people with social assistance have on companies in which they are shareholders and /or directors.
Unless he proposes to Parliament to pass a law across the board making the ETC registration number compulsory – the number meaning a certificate by ETC stating that this person is recorded with the corporation to be gainfully occupied – and having that law passed, people will continue to flout the system and the honest workers and taxpayers will continue to be tempted to go with the flow and follow suit.
Complicity in undeclared unemployment must be stopped.
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And if the authorities do not know what I am referring to, than it means that these authorities are not worthy of their name.
