Environment Minister Jose Herrera defended the decision regarding the employment of WasteServ employees prior to last year's general election, which he described as technically engaging in contracts of service, at a Public Accounts Committee meeting on Tuesday evening.
60% of WastServ employees that were hired in 2017 were employed during the election campaign, May 2017, figures provided to the committee at a previous meeting by the company's CEO Tonio Montebello show.
The same figures also show that more than 30% of the employees were also from the 1st District.
The committee is currently investigating the recruitment of employees with WasteServ in 2017, particularly during the election campaign, after a request was made by the Nationalist Party.
Environment Minister Jose Herrera, who is politically responsible for WasteServ, contests on the 1st district, which includes the localities of Valletta, Floriana, Hamrun, Marsa, Pieta, Gwardamanga, and Santa Venera.
Herrera testified during Tuesday's session, where he described how the responsibilities of the Environment Ministry had grown exponentially.
He described how the increase in waste being produced by the public, inclusive of tourists, requirements stemming from Natura 2000 commitments and increased public demand for the state to oversee and manage public areas such as parks and valleys rendered many of the Environment Ministry's entities as being severely understaffed.
When pressed about the practice, which is laid out in writing, not to hire workers with the civil service during an election campaign, Herrera said that technically workers were not employed to the civil service but contracts of service were entered with several workers on a definite period.
He argued that the Minister's role is to provide political direction, and at no point did he give orders for specific workers to be hired. Herrera echoed previous statements he himself made in an interview with The Malta Independent where he said the British Parliamentary system which Malta has inherited has its positive aspects, however some others are not "ideal".
Herrera took umbrage at the implication that it is unheard of for constituents to approach a Ministry's customer care section, inquiring about specific jobs. The Minister explained that when constituents do so, customer care workers simply inform those people on the appropriate agency to apply to.
He questioned whether the PN MPs within PAC had never received constituents at whichever ministry they so happened to work at, again pointing towards how the system is not ideal and should be addressed during discussions on amendments to the Constitution.
He said the Minister provides political direction by entering into commitments, such as works on public valleys, which are communicated to the relevant entities which then oversee how to execute the commitment.
He was pressed on why such large decisions were taken at WasteServ in the weeks leading up to the election when it could be that Minister Herrera would no longer be Environment Minister. PN MP and chair of the committee Beppe Fenech Adami was harshly grilling the Minister, commenting that his actions were "not correct".
Several workers recruited to WasteServ during the campaign were transferred to parks maintenance departments. The minister justified this move by saying the existing workers at WasteServ were already overburdened by increased work demands.
Labour MPs came to his defence by bringing up decisions taken by PN governments during electoral campaigns. The example being brought up was unclear as a disagreement took place between the MPs from both sides of the divide.
"There is criticism today that there are not enough workers to man the public parks," an exasperated Herrera said.
Fenech Adami pressed on saying he is no inventing numbers, and the CEO of WasteServ himself said that 134 employees were added during the election campaign.
Herrera stressed that by committing to oversee several of public spaces, obviously workers were needed to deliver, meaning more workers had to be hired at WaseServ.
Fenech Adami repeatedly asked whether it was correct for the Minister to hire those workers within that politically sensitive time-frame, to which Labour MPs from the PAC committee itself, questioned what the Minister was supposed to do to have that work completed.
Shadow speaker for the environment Jason Azzopardi asked him a series of questions towards the end of the sitting, related to whether, in his opinion he did not skirt the spirit of the ban on hiring people in the civil service during an election campaign and whether it was right that he did so.
Herrera remarked that he is trained in the same way as Azzopardi, to only answer about facts and not relay opinions.