The government should revise the water and electricity surcharge to penalise waste and not basic use, Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin general secretary Gejtu Vella said. He was speaking during a summer activity the union organised for workers.

Mr Vella said the UĦM was preoccupied at the country’s inflation rate which had now reached 5.6 per cent. Between June and July it was the highest in the Eurozone.

This, Mr Vella said, meant that workers were having less money in their pockets and different categories of workers and pensioners were seeing a drop in their standard of living.

The government, he said, should take action for consumers to be better protected. The authorities’ presence to control abuses had to be felt and the government should compensate for the increase in the cost of living to mitigate the drop in the standard of living.

The government should strengthen the Office of Fair Trading so that this could take action against cartels and other abusive practices. The government should also encourage an increase in the production of agricultural products.

Mr Vella also spoke on illegal immigration saying that although solutions were not easy, they had to be found. These solutions, he said, had to respect human dignity.

The authorities should curb the abuses taking place at Marsa where a large number of immigrants were daily found in the main roads trying to acquire a day’s work. If Maltese workers were not being found for certain jobs, steps should be taken and people should not be employed at deplorable wages and conditions.

The government should also continue pressing the EU for assistance with this problem.