The Labour government doesn’t want to genuinely address the housing affordability crisis. The top=brass of the government and the party want to ensure to keep enriching themselves even further even if this means adding more fuel to Malta’s structural problems.
Justice Minister Jonathan Attard is bragging that he went to a Shanghai property expo in China, with up to 80 Maltese delegates to attract Chinese investment in Malta’s property sector. There is an extensive report about the trip by Times of Malta. The delegation included Sandro Chetcuti and Chris Vassallo.
Obviously, this is exactly what anyone would do if their intention is to exacerbate the housing affordability crisis: a significant amount of new foreign investment in the local property sector. There are probably those in the government who are very much aware of this simple and basic fact and this is why Jonathan Attard has visited China and Shanghai without a representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The initiative was exclusively conducted by his own ministry, which is also very unusual. Minister Attard was handed the Building and Construction portfolio to supposedly upgrade the laws on construction standards. Now he is soliciting Chinese property purchases for Sandro Chetcuti and the Vassallo Group.
Joseph Muscat’s criminal network including Charlon Gouder, who is Jonathan Attard’s close friend, were involved in a fraudulent scheme which sold Maltese permanent visas and ghost rentals to Chinese citizens. This fraudulent scheme contributed to a major national issue, currently being discussed right now, about soaring rent prices.
The visit to Shanghai was made on behalf of the rent-seeking economy, and as an exploration for the further enrichment of Labour’s top brass. The last thing Malta needs is a significant inflow of foreign purchases in the property sector which would raise prices exponentially even further. Malta’s property market is relatively small and it can be easily affected by large purchases which can be done easily by many large foreign buyers. Sandro Chetcuti doesn’t mind turning our country into a Chinese colony so that he can sell an extra dozen of buildings but the risks of overheating the property in Malta would be devastating for the population.
Labour is showing us that we haven’t yet seen its worst.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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