We learnt a few things from Juan Ameen’s article “Caterer’s objection on tender to supply food to irregular immigrants” (TMIS, 24 September), but question marks remain.

We learnt that the Corinthia Palace Hotel company provides illegal immigrants with their breakfast, lunch and dinner. How many Maltese can say as much? The cost to the Maltese taxpayer is about Lm186 000. Is this for all the detention centres, or just those run by the army? Is it for a month, three months or what?

Corinthia’s reply to James Caterers that it has an “excellent reputation as one of the top firms in the field of catering”, that it “is able to offer the high-quality product it is known for” and that it “intended to use certain highly qualified employees”, is all commendable. We further learn that the catering equipment (vehicles and mobile trolleys) has to show the temperature, presumably to ensure that food is not delivered cold or lukewarm. Corinthia will utilise a kitchen “held by them within the precincts of Malta International Airport in connection with in-flight services”, that is, illegal immigrants will be served as well as the passengers on flights.

It is difficult to square all this with statements made in the Shadow Report on Racism in Malta in 2005 by the European Network Against Racism, authored by Christian Attard (www.enar-eu.org/en/national/malta). There we read about the detention centres (page 10): “Outbreaks of scabies were reported and the inadequacy of food served... was also subject to criticism; Muslim detainees did not trust that certain food was free of pork, so they weren’t eating it, and this was leading to resentment from the Maltese cooks working at the centres. Some detainees were also not used to consuming a lot of meat, and this was causing them health problems”.

Admittedly, the author does not cite the sources for his statements. But then he also states that “detainees had nothing to do all day and this was leading some of them to the brink of insanity”. Would it not be a good idea to ask detainees to cook their own food? It would give them something to do, they would be sure they are eating the right food, and it would be a much cheaper cost for us.

Louise Vella

MOSTA