There are lies, damned lies, and statistics, and the latest Gozo Regional Development Authority (GRDA) wellbeing report fits squarely in that tradition. However, the presentation hides the fact that the study did not aim to understand Gozo, despite the report's use of models. The authors wrote it to justify a policy direction they had already chosen. The consultants behind it, E-Cubed Consultants Ltd did not arrive as independent analysts. They came as the familiar firm that government bodies and agencies hire when they need numbers to support a project, not challenge it. The same outfit provided the "evidence" that helped pave the way for the Gozo heliport proposal. Now they have done it again, this time to shape the narrative on population growth.
The report projects that Gozo's population will rise from 40,191 in 2022 to over 52,000 by 2052. Media outlets rushed to report it as fact. Headlines presented it as an inevitable outcome, as if E-Cubed had glanced at a census rather than constructed a scenario built on political and economic convenience. No newspaper asked who wrote the report, who paid for it, or why it pushes this demographic direction. Everyone quoted the numbers, but nobody questioned them.
E-Cubed has made a business out of producing government-friendly documentation. Ministries, authorities, and agencies bring them in when they need to give weight to decisions already taken behind closed doors. Their name appears repeatedly in public procurement records, and not by coincidence. These are the people governments call when a project needs a stamp of expertise. The GRDA might say it commissioned an "independent assessment," but independence ends when the client expects validation.
The most reported claim in the document - that Gozo's population will keep increasing - rests on assumptions chosen to produce that outcome. The report does not show a natural demographic trend based on births, deaths and long-term settlement. It inflates future numbers through migration, mainly foreign labour. Foreign residents go from 8,557 in 2022 to nearly 18,000 by 2042, then level off. The Maltese residents rise slowly to around 34,600 by 2052. This is statistical engineering designed to present population expansion as something that we must accommodate rather than question, rather than representing organic growth.
Once the population number gets planted in public debate, it becomes ammunition. Developers use it to claim Gozo needs more housing. Lobbyists push for more infrastructure and the government argues that it cannot delay investment projects. And all of it traces back not to community demand, but to a consultancy document that cost taxpayers money to frame private interests as public necessity.
The report talks about wellbeing but treats wellbeing as an index, not a lived reality. It assigns a 45% weight to environmental wellbeing, 35% to social wellbeing and 20% to economic wellbeing. These figures pretend a model can calculate harmony between the land and the people living on it. But nothing in the report confronts water stress, land degradation, planning abuse or the daily erosion of Gozo's rural identity. Instead, it claims that environmental wellbeing will improve simply because more vehicles will become electric and more energy will come from renewables. Electrification does not reduce congestion, and it does not protect a valley from excavation or stop a ridge from vanishing under concrete.
The report assumes the number of private cars per resident will drop from 0.67 to 0.35 by 2052. Anyone driving in and out of Rabat knows this fantasy does not belong to today's island or tomorrow's. In the meantime, the work of construction is ongoing without interruption at all locations. Over 33,000 units are the new projected figure for housing stock. The authors claim most of this will come from "regeneration" rather than new land take-up, as if replacing old houses with blocks of flats does not count as pressure. The media does not mention this contradiction. It only repeats the population number, and in doing so, it helps normalise the direction.
By 2052, the wellbeing index predicts Gozo's economic wellbeing to rise 101%. The population rise feeds into a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) projection that treats growth as a sign of success without asking who benefits or who pays the price. The report states that Gozo will depend less on the national economy over time, but still assumes national funds will increase spending on health, education, and poverty. So, as Gozo grows, the government spends more, but the island remains fiscally dependent. That is not self-sufficiency, but a statistical illusion sold as strategy.
E-Cubed and its clients know numbers carry power. When a consultancy tells the public that early school leavers will drop to 3% and at-risk-of-poverty rates will fall, it gives politicians cover to say they have planned the future. The statement that wellbeing will improve by 41% by 2052 conceals issues. These issues arise from adding thousands of new residents to an island. The island already struggles with hospital capacity, transport, and housing costs. These projections are not forecasts, merely policy tools.
The media, instead of interrogating this, provided the megaphone. "Gozo's population to surge," they report, without one sentence on who produced the data or why. No mention that E-Cubed profiting from public contracts. No mention, the same firm produced the rationale for the heliport, another project with little public backing and plenty of private interest. Newspapers and portals quote the numbers as though they emerged from a national census office rather than a commissioned exercise built on conditional assumptions.
If Gozo wants a serious conversation about its future, it must stop allowing consultancies to dictate the premise. A small island cannot absorb a population increase of 12,000 people without consequences. Every unit of growth brings demand for waste collection, hospital beds, housing, roads, teachers, energy, and water. The report turns these into variables rather than burdens. It speaks of "wellbeing" while treating people as inputs in an equation and land as an adjustable factor.
Gozo needs planning driven by its residents, not by consultants and their clients. Policymakers cannot hide behind glossy reports written to suit them. The public deserves to know who wrote the numbers and who paid them to write them. The media must stop repeating figures without context and start asking why certain growth narratives get funded and promoted.
The conversation about population should not start with how many more people Gozo can take. Whether Gozo wants more people at all is the place to start. It should ask what kind of island Gozitans want in 30 years and who gets to shape that decision. It should question how much more concrete, traffic, and rent inflation the island can tolerate before wellbeing becomes a marketing term instead of a right.
Statistics become lies when they serve power instead of people. This report does not speak about Gozo. It speaks for those who want the island to grow because growth justifies projects, permits, and profit. If Gozo lets consultants write about its future, it will lose the right to recognise itself when that future arrives.