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its not just tax evaders but its medical care and benefit cheats too....as without it they probably couldnt afford to live here - sorry but it is what i see here every day...and the worst things is they know we know who they are...sadly they wear it like a badge of honour. such is life

eu and working

has anyone had any further difficulties using the new e-res cert/permit - the temporary one......? we know ricky had the issue at the vat dept and i know of one person having had difficulty on the bus and was forced to pay the full fare...are there any more....?

this seems to be the norm response from the dept....

Good morning,

I wrote an email to eresidence.mfa last wednesday (so more than a week ago) for setting up an appointment and asking one question. Since I haven't received an answer yet, I thought I might ask you:

Is the mentioned "residence documentation" the „Certifikat ta‘ Registrazzjoni“ from „Sigurta Socjali“? since I think that at the moment I just have the ID-card and the „Certifikat ta‘ Registrazzjoni“.

So I will bring with me the Form ID 1A and CEA Form A and my old ID-card (and Certifikat ta' Registrazzjoni?), right?

my advice would be to take everything - best to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it....

is austin gatt behind all this?!

After 2.5 weeks and 3 emails, finally got my appointment at 23. may...
Thats more than 3 months, I will be illegal for a while...

rumour that office to be opened in Gozo after Easter

No, I wanted it asap...

Phew!  Just got back from our Valletta experience and our tale goes like this:

Our appointment was for 11.45am so we arrived at 11.31am.  (This is quite relevant as the receptionist upstairs with whom everyone is supposed to book-in finishes his shift at 11.30 and had just upped and gone home!)..   I didnÂ’t realise this as I fought my way through throngs of people standing around talking loudly and staring at newcomers. Finding the reception desk vacant, I spotted a lady whom IÂ’d heard speaking English to her husband so asked her what was happening and what were we supposed to do and she told me this news.

The halls were heaving - there is no other word for it.  Most seemed to be immigrants from the North African countries with their families, some of their ladies were dressed in their colourful and beautiful outfits and a few with their young babies and toddlers in pushchairs - which made negotiating the corridors a feat of carefulness.

They kept trying to waylay the two “uniformed” chaps that kidded themselves that they were keeping everyone organised, though in fact it was truly, utter chaos.  Most of the seats were taken as there were so many people there and so many people kept walking up and down in their frustration at trying to talk to someone official to find out what was going on.  I managed to talk with one of these “official” chaps and he said in a very cheesed-off manner, “Sit and you will be called”.  So when we spotted a couple of vacant seats we sat.

The chaos continued with the two men in black waving their arms in “shushing” movements and pointing at the immigrants and saying “Friday, Friday - GO,  GO!”  The people didnÂ’t “Go” they just moved further down the corridors and waited somewhere else or, when they were herded to the stairs they did go down  - but then popped back up again a few minutes later via the lifts!    There were easily 50 - 60 people in total all waiting to be “called” or given some information.

From time to time a lady would appear very apprehensively from one of the rooms and call a name in a very quiet voice then when several different families shot up she realised she needed to call a little louder to be heard above the hub-bub as not only everyone seemed to be talking at once but babies were crying and parents were walking toddlers up and down to amuse them.

We chatted with various folk that we came into contact with and found that people who had appointments an hour before ours were still waiting.  At 12.30 we were advised that the office staff had gone to lunch and would return at 1.15pm to continue.   They returned at 1.30pm and at last a few people were called in but on the whole, much of the same continued.

At 1.50pm we were called - though only after I had managed to get the attention of a man in black and tell him weÂ’d been there for 2 ¼ hours and asked when weÂ’d be likely to be seen to. WeÂ’d had nothing to eat or drink since breakfast so tummies were rumbling.  We were in the office that first time until about 2.10pm (only two ladies dealing with people and one of them was a learner and had to ask the other lady for advice on what to do, which tended to hold up both lots of people being seen to).  Anyway, photos were taken, stuff weÂ’d taken with us that she said they didnÂ’t need (because we had already provided proofs of this stuff when we obtained our Residency Certificates) were handed back to us and after a friendly chat with both ladies (!!) we were told to go back outside and weÂ’d be called back in after about 20 minutes. Initialy the lady dealing with us kept our ID and Residency certificates but when another Lady arrived she said they no longer had to retain the Residency certificate and these were returned to us

True enough, at  2.30pm we were called back into the office.  This time we were at the desk of the other lady who was very nice. She then entered onto her computer all the info from the forms weÂ’d handed in earlier then asked for the paperwork that the other lady had told us they didnÂ’t need because it was the residency proofs stuff.  Seems they did need it after all, but neither lady gave our birth/marriage certs more than a cursory glance. Then that was it - we were done!  With our temporary certificates in our hands, we were free to leave the building after 3 ½ hours of occupancy there.

Comments:   (1)  If you have a late morning appointment I would suggest you take a sarnie and a drink; (the toilets were clean and okay!)    (2).  We were told by the two ladies who dealt with us that the immigrants were so insistent in refusing to leave because theyÂ’d had appointments LAST Friday but apparently the office hadnÂ’t been able to cope with the large numbers that theyÂ’d actually been told to come back today (Monday) so it wasnÂ’t their fault.  They all had remained calm - but just very frustrated and insistent that they werenÂ’t going away.
They are getting more and more behind with the whole procedure and while we were there seemed to deal with around two applicants per hour!

when and how long after your initial request did it take for them to get back to you with your appointment date and time.many thanks martyn.

We applied on the 21st Jan and had a reply on the 23rd.
While we were there today there were a few people who turned up to get an appointment because they had been waiting for a reply to the email they had sent three weeks earlier. They were told that they could not book an appointment at the office but should wait for a reply to the email. It looked to us that the appointment system was unable to cope with the flood of applications.

Terry

Hi tearnet,

thanks for your update.

It sounds the same as when we did ours about 4 weeks ago !

And the Friday immigrants still seem to be harrassing all those  with appointments. When we were there they were very rude and scary !

It certainly is an issue if they reserve 25 % of the time for them and they still think they have a right to push in front of the others!

It sounds racist but having seen illegal immigrants throw their own women out of the queue to board the bus I'm not that sympathetic of their situation anymore.

We'll see how it develops !

Cheers
Ricky

Tearnet, I would say that you were actually very lucky.

My wife and I were there also today and it was one of the worst experiences with any sort of government agency in our lives! I am not exaggerating.

I've lived in a number of countries, some that are almost considered third-world, and I have never ever seen such lack of organisation, unprofessionalism and treatment of people like garbage in my whole life!

Everything that you wrote was true, but where we had different experiences was with the behind the closed doors part.

I was surprised first that the woman doing the first part of the application didn't know that our country was part of the EU and it's not even a East European country. But okay, I guess this can happen. However, things quickly became quite ridiculous.

There were sections of the form (EU Family Member) that nobody in the office knew what they were about or what had to be filled in. They actually asked us what it means! Of course we didn't know, so they said, "It's okay, we probably don't need it then".

We somehow managed to get through this first part where our picture was taken. Then they told us to go outside and wait.

So we did.

It went on and on, I started feeling dizzy from the lack of fresh air and dehydration, but I was determined to stay and finish the procedure. People kept on coming up and asking the two guards for information, but they just waved their heads or responded disinterestedly either that they don't know or for people to just keep on waiting and they would be called. The "would be called" part is interesting as nobody ever called anybody. Mostly people had to go in and bug them to get their turn.

Two girls who were before us got in for the second part of the application where a woman enters your data in the computer and issues you with a blue paper.

I was ecstatic that we would be next.

I saw the two girls leaving and was just about to walk in when the woman went on break at around 12.30. We asked what was going on, the guard told us they went home and it's finished.

I said, "But they told us to wait here for the second part." Then he said, "Yes, for the second part, yes. Wait, she's on break till 1.15."

We stood by the door determined not to let anyone cut in line when she did return from the break at what we thought was supposed to be 1.15.

She returned at nearly 2 pm and we immediately walked in after her.

This is where it got crazy and what ensued was an hour of her screaming and nearly ripping up our papers. We felt powerless, but all we wanted was to get out of their so we indulged her, kept apologising and saying that everything was our fault and she was right in everything, just to get things done.

The African immigrants kept entering the room without appointment each time one person would finish and they kept kicking them out, but they kept circulating and coming back to try to get their stuff done.

Apparently, some of those immigrants come in every day and wait there in the hallway all day long and continuously try to jump the queue to no avail.

The whole thing was so surreal, we felt we were in a Kafka book.

Finally, we were done! And 4-5 hours had passed since we had arrived.

When we left the room, I heard one of the guards ask a timid Asian woman: "For when did you have your appointment?" The lady said: "10.30 am."

At that moment I felt like we were actually so lucky! It was nearly 3 o'clock and this woman still hadn't even completed the first part of the application, just because she wasn't pushy and waited for them to call her!

I think this was probably the most stressful experience in Malta so far, after 3 years of living here.

Good luck, people! If you're advanced in age, I suggest you don't go alone and wait for them to call you. Get someone younger to come with you who can push around and insist on getting this application process completed!

Thanks Tearnet!

If you apply yourself and for the whole family, do you have to bring the children with you, or you can do without them?


Thanks

My understanding is that the children must come with you and in fact there were a number of children there today from babies to teenagers.
Terry

Yes children need to go too. I had to take mine and they now have their own ID numbers and had their own photos taken, they are 6 and 9 years old.

organised chaos - that is Malta

Ah sure, I forgot the "biometrical data".
That will be fun...

Have there been in public complaints about this fiasco??

plenty complaints but they go unheard, unanswered and never get listened to - its whats called in UK PPI - pi$$ poor implementation = apologies for the laguage..but it is apt.

I will be complaining to the EU ombudsman in Valletta
.
Not only about the way as an ID  and current residency card holder we were treated but also at the very racist attitude of the "men in black" security to the Africans who were at all times polite and patient but frustrated at the way they were treated.

Terry

hope you get somewhere with it Terry.

I suspect they will tell you the 2nd point is nothing to do with the EU, and you will need to report it to the Maltese police, but they might take up the first point.

they might say something about the racism aspect and even the discrimination but i am not sure theres anything they can do about it....unless of course they can act against the persons or the dept responsible for the persons acting this way.

it begs the question why the DCEA havent got someone at the door to explain to these people in their own language (maybe even their own ethnic origin) - its not like the dept havent known about this project for at least a year or more - thinking about it hasnt this "plan" been in the offing since 2007...!!!!

Time to contact Peter Andre

Did anyone of the latest "guests" at the department get any info about when these new ID cards would be send out? I was told 4 weeks ago that it would take 5-8 weeks from application date. Reading about the chaos it might take longer now?

Having been shouted at and treated with total ignorance when I went to Castille Place recently, I have no intention of going back any time soon.  I had only gone there to check on my residency status (and not to apply for the new ID)and when I tried to explain the reason for my visit to a 'suit' he shouted at me at the top of his voice, was incredibly rude and would not listen to my explanation of the reason for my visit.  I also intend to contact the Ombudsman.

I have a Maltese friend who works as an EU Compliance Officer for the government. He knows who the staff are who are administering - if that can be a justifiable word - the eresidence system

They are a team of three: a team leader and two female assistants. That is all. They are meant to process 50 applicants per day but are nowhere near reaching that target. Tearnet's contribution clearly explains why. EU applicants are processed Monday and Thursday, third nation applicants Tuesday and Friday. The team is closed on Wednesday. Recently they closed for two weeks for further training

There has been speculation as to what is behind this eresidence system. Apparently it is Malta's obligation under the Schengen Agreement to provide IT-based information on EU/EEA nationals and third nation nationals moving in and out of its borders. This information is passed to a massive IT network called the Schengen Information System (SIS) which is meant to track people of interest as they travel through the open borders of Schengen countries

25 out of the 27 EU member states are signed up to Schengen, the UK and Ireland have not but the UK has agreed protocols to allow its police and security forces access to SIS to track criminals and terrorists across Europe

Malta should have set up this system under Schengen up to four years ago but the government has been delaying doing so because of the high cost of the IT technology required.

You know what they say about security officers, Nicky 777?

Anyone applying to work as a security officer first has to sit an IQ test. The ones who fail get the job

thanks for that Avro, very interesting - so a target of 50 a day for 4 days a week, with an estimated 30,000 to process (never mind the new arrivals) = March 2016

Factor in the 2,000 a year new arrivals (my guess), and its more like Xmas 2016 to catch up !

although your husband is non-EU, he is applying as a family member of an EU citizen, so would go on an EU day