Call for data on defaulting visa holders

Labour Party spokesman Josè Herrera yesterday called on the National Statistics Office to compile data on the number of foreigners who are in Malta illegally and are working.

This office, he said, did not have statistics on the number of foreigners who are in Malta illegally and this was worrying.

Dr Herrera said that in 2003, 48,000 visas were issued to foreigners to be able to come to Malta and another 30,000 visas were already issued this year.

When the minister was asked in a parliamentary question how many of the people given a visa had overstayed the reply was that such information was not available. Dr Herrera said such information was unavailable because statistics were not being kept, .

He said the time had come for the NSO, with the full cooperation of the departments concerned, to start collecting the necessary information as soon as possible in order to keep statistics, as precise as possible, as to how many visa holders were ignoring their visa conditions.

The problem, he said, could be more acute than the government believed it to be.