Karm Farrugia (‘A healthy economy’, The Sunday Times of Malta, June 14) is right about Malta’s excellent economic growth statistics.

This is largely due to English being our main commercial communication medium and also the fact that we are essentially a low-wage, low-pension economy, combined with a sizeable black economy.

My generation of hospital consultants were remunerated, up to a few years ago, little more than Lm10,000 annually for a 40-hour week and, those who had some British health service pension, had this subtracted from their Maltese contributory social security pension, leaving them with hardly any Maltese pension for their professional services to the Maltese State.

This latter institutionalised pension fraud scandal is unheard of in other democracies, and the recent pensions White Paper has not only done nothing about this, but is a total non-event.

There is, however, another twist to Malta’s performance statistics. The percentage of our poor and of those at risk of poverty (most of them pensioners) is not falling but rising. The reason is obvious. Wealth is growing alright but its distribution is mainly directed towards the already rich.

Both the Lawrence Gonzi and Joseph Muscat governments did well to decrease taxation of effort (income tax), but the increase of VAT from 15 per cent to 18 per cent (to fund the now infamous Mater Dei project) hit mainly the less well-off.

The only economist in Malta who understands (and has the spine to state) what is needed to better fund the welfare State and more equitable wealth distribution (not from increases in NI, income tax or VAT, but from taxation of accumulated wealth), in tandem with better control of land and building speculation is John Consiglio. He has repeatedly expounded his views in this newspaper.