Gozo ministry to engage 100 more security guards with €4.5m tender

The Gozo Ministry – known for employing the highest number of messengers, labourers, beach cleaners and watchmen per capita among all the country’s public administration – is planning to add another 100 security guards to its staff complement for at least the next two years.

The new recruits will not put be directly on the government’s payroll but will instead be recruited through a private security company that will be assigned a lucrative €4.5 million public contract in the coming weeks.

The tender specifies that the contractor may also be given an extension to provide the service for a further year, which would increase the cost to taxpayers by approximately another €2.5 million.

According to a new tender published by the Gozo Ministry a few weeks ago, there is a need to add more security staff at various unnamed locations “to make sure that law and order” is strengthened.

Among the assignments required of the new security personnel, on the instructions of the permanent secretary, are the “supervision of corridors”, “to maintain good order, and prevent the disturbance of the public peace and disorderly and unruly behaviour” and “the prevention of unauthorised access”.

The Gozo Ministry already employs hundreds of security staff, either directly or by contract, and yet the island is not exactly known for the observance of rules.

Other government agencies or their Gozo branches – including Gozo Channel, the education ministry, the fisheries department and many others – also dish out frequent tenders for the provision of various services by private entities, including security personnel, cleaners, health assistants and clerical staff – all funded by taxpayers.

Sources close to the Gozo Ministry told The Shift that the latest tender is “another excuse to put more Gozitans and people close to the ruling Labour Party onto the government payroll”.

The majority of the Gozitan working population is now employed by the government, either directly or indirectly through the Community Workers Scheme, at the Gozo Channel or by private companies that supply government departments and entities with security, trades and other services.

The  Community Worker’s Scheme, supposedly intended to be a temporary training scheme for the long-term unemployed until they find alternative and more productive employment in the private sector, has been turned into an unofficial government jobs agency – some 600 out of the 1,200 on the national scheme are from Gozo.

There is what seems to be a deliberate lack of surveillance of the scheme, managed by the General Workers Union, with most of the employees either never turning up for work or spending only a short while on the job to mark their presence.

Instead, most work irregular private jobs in the construction industry or maintenance work. In the meantime, they receive a government cheque at the end of every month while the government also covers their national insurance payments.

Gozo’s private sector associations continuously complain about the lack of workers available for employment.

Meanwhile, the country’s debt continues to surge and is expected to reach €9 billion soon. Half of that was created since Robert Abela took power from disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat.