Malta Ropes In 40 More Staff To Speed Up Visas For Indians And Other Asian Workers
Facing a major gridlock in the processing of visas at the Malta High Commission in India, the authorities will rope in 40 staff to ease the pressure.
Identity Malta CEO Mark Mallia confirmed with TVM that these 40 employees will be deployed to the task within the next week, scrutinising visa applications from Indian, Nepalese, Sri Lankan and Maldivian people.
The India High Commission usually also processes applications from Bangladeshi nationals but these were recently suspended, with no official reason given.
“It will be a parallel process to that of the India High Commission and we will maximise the output as much as possible to reduce the backlog,” Mallia said.
Many of these applicants are people seeking to move to Malta for work and who have already found a job and obtained a work permit from Identity Malta.
However, they are often forced to wait months for a visa, even when they pay extra for their applications to be fast-tracked, and some have even been denied a visa for spurious reasons.
The High Commission of Malta in New Delhi, India (Photo: Reuben Gauci)
This gridlock is putting many Maltese businesses under strain, with the Chamber of SMEs warning several businesses have been left short-staffed and the Maltese economy is losing out on “several millions”.
Renowned chef Sean Gravina also recently urged the authorities to speed up the process of bringing third-country nationals over, warning that few Maltese people want to work in catering as a result of the industry’s working hours, despite salaries being “very good”.
Maltese unemployment is practically non-existent and many businesses find it hard to attract EU workers, with the island’s extremely high rent prices and relatively low mean salaries often cited as disincentives.
Meanwhile, Mallia warned that some employers are misusing the system by applying for more workers than they actually need, presumably to improve their chances of filling the position as quickly as possible.
“For example, if someone needs ten workers, he won’t just apply for ten workers but go to five recruitment agencies and apply for ten workers with each one,” he said. “Ultimately, this means we will have to process 50 applications instead of 10 and conduct due diligence on all 50 of those workers. Therefore the system gets clogged and the process experiences delays.”
Cover photo: Left: Identity Malta CEO Mark Mallia, Right: Bangladeshi nationals gather at the VFS offices in New Delhi after their visa applications were suspended
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