The government has withdrawn discharge letters to all Environment Landscape Consortium employees, the Environment Ministry said in a statement.

On Tuesday afternoon, independent candidate Arnold Cassola has written on Facebook that the Public-Private Partnership contract between the Environmental Landscapes consortium employees and the government is coming to an end, and employees working as a result of this agreement are going to lose their jobs.

The letter reads that the company's attempts to extend the contract did not result in any positive outcome as of yet, the letter read, adding that due to this the company did not have any alternative but to issue collective redundancies to all employees on its books that will come into effect on 1 January 2020.

In a statement through the Department of Information, the Environment Ministry said the government is committed to ensure that the work carried out by the ELC – embellishment and landscaping – continues to be carried out.

The government said it had initiated a process for a public call, based on the recommendations made by the Auditor General in 2017 on the ELC contract that started in 2002 and was periodically renewed.

The ministry is at an advanced stage of negotiations with the existing consortium to reach an agreement for a transitional period. For this reason, the discharge letters were being withdrawn.