Tax-free holidays

Like M. Borg (August 14), I am annoyed at the laissez-faire attitude of the authorities who permit or close an eye to the encroachment of private businesses on public areas. Each season, restaurants, bars, beach operators and sundry traders insidiously inch their way further onto pavements, public stairways, beaches and even roads, staking them as their own, marking their borders by means of pots, plants, trellises and whatever comes to hand in their quest for territorial dominance. Are these entrepreneurs taxed or fined for using public areas for trading purposes?

I am equally curious and, indeed, concerned about the more recent phenomenon of street tattooists, Oriental trinket vendors, artists, buskers and tradespeople of sundry description, origin and species, who, together with their entourage squatting about them, freely conduct their business, cluttering public areas in strategic points of the island.

Other than adding to the general shabbiness of these crowded spots, they do little to enhance the Mediterranean flavour of these islands of ours, and impart a metropolitan charm we could well do without. We do not need to sacrifice our characteristic Maltese atmosphere to emulate that offered by big cities abroad.

If the Maltese wish to experience this, they can travel, while tourists come here to escape from what they encounter at every corner in their own cities. In foreign countries these street artists have special licences which they must display; those who do not can be seen shifting surreptitiously from one end of the block to another when authorities approach. In Malta, it seems, no such regulations or checks exist which is stretching the "Welcome to Malta" chant a bit too far.

Locals are required to apply for VAT certificates, ETC registration, followed by endless form-filling, national insurance contributions, tax payments and quarterly returns in order to eke out a living. Whether these enterprising visitors are in possession of a visa extension, work permit and VAT documents is doubtful, yet they manage to operate freely.

At the risk of being labelled xenophobic, and while conceding the basic human right to work, I feel that visitors are exercising too much entrepreneurial freedom, while too little checking is being carried out by the authorities concerned. This is to the detriment of that proportion of the 460,000 Maltese citizens who engage in legitimate employment, to our culture, as well as to the general appearance of popular promenades and leisure areas.