In a statement issued yesterday, ELC chairman Peter Calamatta explained that a board to monitor the work, as well as payments made, had been set up when the contract was signed with the government two years ago.

This guarantees the government is getting value for money when paying the consortium. Over the last few days, the board claimed that a few technical details had to be cleared with the Finance and Rural Affairs and Environment Ministries before payments were made.

These points had been cleared in a number of recent meetings. In fact, the consortium workers were due to be paid yesterday. This agreement was made on Wednesday evening and the General Workers’ Union was aware of this. Therefore reports made in the newspapers of the union were not correct.

Contrary to what Tony Zarb claims, the workers are the ones that benefit most from public-private partnerships, said Mr Calamatta. The government has paid these workers more than Lm600,000 in bonuses, overtime and other incentives over the last year-and-a-half.