Gozo Minister creates new jobs-for-votes agency

Projects Gozo Limited – a new government company to be set up by the Gozo Minister – is believed to be the latest employment vehicle created by Clint Camilleri to put more Gozitans on the public payroll.

A few weeks ago, the name of a new company, not yet registered at the Malta Business Registry, appeared on the Gozo ministry’s website, raising eyebrows about what was cooking at Victoria’s St Francis Square, which hosts the sister island’s ministry.

The Shift sent several questions to the Gozo minister about the new company’s scope, why it was mentioned on the ministry’s website despite not being officially registered, and who its board members were.

The ministry and its Permanent Secretary, John Borg, ignored the questions in what has become the norm in the government’s dealings with the press unless it’s a favourable journalist who toes the line or the newsroom is being paid for official coverage.

A few days later, the ministry issued a public statement announcing Projects Gozo Ltd, with scant details of its mission.

According to a short statement, the company, wholly owned by the government, will be responsible “for overseeing capital projects” and “handling their upkeep upon completion”. No capital projects were mentioned.

The Shift is informed the new company is thought to be just another vehicle for Minister Camilleri to put as many constituents on the public payroll as possible in his quest to beat increasing competition in his district from his rivals, Ministers Anton Refalo and Jo Etienne Abela.

The sources explained that the only sizeable ongoing project in Gozo is the much-delayed Gozo Sports Complex, where an Olympic-sized pool is being built by a company controlled by rogue construction magnate Joseph Portelli.

Works on the pool have been ongoing for years, with no end in sight yet.

The pool was initially scheduled to be inaugurated in 2021, but it is still a work in progress. The minister’s most recent target date of June 2024 has also been missed.

The pool, which will replace the Gozo Sports Complex, is also expected to cost twice as much as the original €9 million budget.

Questions have been raised about why such a project needs a new government company to run it.

The Sports Complex already employed some 30 government employees to run it, but they have all been transferred to other government departments during the ongoing works, some with almost nothing to do.

Ministry sources said Camilleri wanted to employ new personnel instead of reposting them to their original place of work, which would add further costs to the public payroll.

The same may be in the pipeline for the Gozo mini-airstrip project Camilleri wants to build, even though there is no demand for it, and every helicopter service operated to Gozo in the past decades went bust.

While the Gozo ministry and its agencies, including the Gozo Channel, have always been convenient ‘jobs centres’ for many Gozitans under different administrations, Minister Camilleri has taken the jobs-for-votes system to a new level.

While recruiting hundreds of new employees, most without actual work, he also took advantage of a government scheme for the so-called ‘jobless’, burdening it with hundreds of Gozitan workers, most of whom work other jobs off the books.

The Community Workers Scheme, run by the General Workers Union and costing millions a year, was most popular in Gozo.

It is a known secret that many on this scheme do not even go to work or spend just a few minutes signing the attendance sheet before leaving to tend to their private jobs around the island.