by NOEL GRIMA Companies that have been importing consumer goods into Malta for decades are up in arms at the quantity of goods that is entering Malta through the quick sea connections with Sicily. While the established companies register what they import and are fully accountable as regards paying the eco-taxes and are fully complaint with health and other regulations, the “cowboy merchants” take trucks to Sicily and come back laden with what they can buy from the Sicilian bulk-sellers. Ever since Malta joined the EU, there is practically no control down at Grand Harbour where the goods are being unloaded at the Valletta Waterfront end rather than at the cargo end. At most, if anything, there might be a desultory search for drugs or weapons but not for any documentation that has to do with the flux of imports. Apart from everything else, there can be a direct health hazard as a result of this open-door policy by default. Recently, a truck was found to be full of “fresh” chickens from Brazil. Such occurrences can easily bring bird flu and other illnesses to Malta seeing there is no control on what is coming in.

The established importers claim this is in breach of EU rules, which clearly regulate that anything that enters an EU country by sea, even if from another EU country, has to pass through Customs and certified. The Chamber of Commerce has long been expressing its worries regarding this blatant abuse to government sources but all it gets is sympathy but no action. Even if it were impossible to bring back the Customs formalities of pre-EU accession, there is such a thing as Market Governance which checks what is being sold to see if there is an audit trial from the customer to the trader and beyond, and also to check in the customer’s own interest that what he is purchasing is safe for consumption. This does not happen and many open-air markets are full of such goods. Ever seen a policeman or official checking the provenance and safety of anything sold at the Ta Qali open market or any other open market for that? Stories are told, for instance, of chemical goods imported from countries with languages that are unknown in Malta and whose warnings, for instance, would completely escape a Maltese consumer. Other cases have cropped up where it was next to impossible to find the importer and charge him with damages suffered as a result of his products.