One of the measures announced in the budget is an increase in annual registration of "yachts". The use of the term "yacht licences" can be somewhat misleading. The word "yacht" often brings to mind luxury power boats and sailing boats. Yet the budget document seems to be using the word yacht in the wider sense to include all sorts of recreational craft. I can only assume that the budget speech is referring to the annual renewal of registration of what the small ship section of the Malta Maritime Authority refers to by the term "boat or ship, including pleasure boats". That includes all sorts of recreational boats that require registration including small dinghies, frejgatini and others.

In the case of the smallest boats, that is those above 3.64 metres without any engine and those boats with small engines up to 9.9hp, the increases in annual registration are definitely excessive.

These boat categories include mainly low value boats (frejgatini, small caiques and runabouts) owned by low salaried workers and pensioners. Up to now the registration renewal for the above categories was €34.94 for a 5-year period, working out at €7 per year.

This reflected the low market value of many boats in this category. Now, at a stroke of the pen, the annual registration renewal has gone up to €90 for boats without engines (an increase of almost 1200 per cent) and €120 for boats with small engines (an increase of over 1600 per cent).

The increases for other categories of boats with larger engines are much less steep and more reasonable.

To continue using his old wooden frejgatina that he might have owned for decades, and that can be worth very little on the market (assuming that it can be sold since there is hardly any market for these boats), a pensioner will now have to fork out €120 every year.

As to whether these increases are socially just or not, I will leave this to the readers to decide.