Sorting out my mail last week, I came upon a letter from Arms Ltd. At first, I thought it was some clarification regarding payment of my utility bills. How wrong I was! It read:

“Despite international crises and the COVID-19 pandemic, which have led to increases in the international price of oil and gas, energy prices in Malta have remained stable and did not increase. That was the result of the strategic decision taken by the Maltese Government to maintain price stability and ensure that the burden of global measures is not shouldered directly by local families and businesses. It was a decision which other countries did not take.”

“The Maltese Government provided clear instructions regarding this matter as early as June 2021, when international prices began to rise. As a result, our records show that you have already saved a total of € xxx,”

It is now no secret that the utilities subsidy by government is running at about €1 million daily or simply touching €400 million annually.

Sending out this note on the eve of an election is nothing more than pleading for my vote, as if the government is lifting me out of my utility bills to improve my feel-good factor and even more improving my disposable income.

I rightly assume that other Gozitan residents have received a similar letter from Arms Ltd, obviously with a different total of euros saved.

So I am referring also to 2021, when the government started subsidising the utility bills, but millions of taxpayers’ money were being wasted or even lining up some special ‘persons of trust’ pockets. 

Maybe the government or even for that matter the Ministry for Gozo and Planning should give us a complete breakdown of the budget overruns regarding projects being carried out in Gozo. After all the subsidised money on utility bills and these sums overspent are coming from the same sources, first from taxpayers’ money and then digging deeper the national financial hole which future generations are being burdened with.

A project carried out by the Ministry of Gozo involved that of the Nadur road. This started in 2015 at an estimated cost of €8 million. Eight years later, this 1 km road had cost €14 million. This road is now completed and ministry sources estimate the total cost of this road to hit €20 more than twice the original estimate. This project is still subject to an ongoing National Audit office (NAO) investigation. 

The Ministry for Gozo forked out €956,120 in 2021 (same year when the government started subsidising my utility bill) on overtime and allowances among the employees of the division – 35 departments and sections, including the Maintenance and Restoration Directorate, Construction and Maintenance Unit, Public Cleansing Section and the Roads Section – which was 53% of the entire ministry’s overtime and allowances budget.

The Gozo Sports Complex project, which was first mentioned in 2012, with construction work starting in 2017, with an initial budget of €9 million and it is still unfinished. The costs for the building of a new public Olympic-size pool in Gozo have almost doubled, to €16 million. After missing several deadlines, Nationalist Party MP Alex Borg asked the minister what was going on. Minister for Gozo Clint Camilleri said the pool would open by next month on June 2024. However, this date is to be missed and according to Minister Camilleri’s comment, the project is due to be completed “later on this year”. Sources close to the ministry calculate that the pool may cost nearly €20 million, more than double its original budget. Meanwhile, local athletes have reluctantly already used alternative facilities for seven years while the severely delayed and over-budget project is still uncompleted.

Another Government’s achievement is how it depleted effectively the workforce is Gozo. The Gozo Business Chamber estimates the Government employs directly or indirectly 50% of all Gozo’s workers. In 2015, only 1.6% of workers were non-Maltese. In 2020 it’s 20%. That’s no surprise, as the government employs over 35.5% of all Gozitan workers. Another 500 are on the GWU community work scheme - a scam evidently intended to help long-term unemployed find gainful employment but where nobody ever finds a job. 300 of them ‘work’ for the Gozo ministry but don’t appear on the government payroll. They’re listed as private sector workers because the government pays the GWU, which then pays them and makes a profit. Ghasri, Gozo’s smallest village, has twice as many of those “workers” as St Paul’s Bay, the country’s most populated local council.

That is not all. Most of these phantom employees sign in the morning at leave about an hour later. So much so small businesses in Gozo had no other alternative but to adjust their opening business hours to accommodate these phantom workers.

The total sham of ‘phantom jobs’ is so rife that Gozo’s Bishop delivered a scathing rebuke during a homily at Ghajnsielem last year. “Those who are being paid without going to work or are just spending a few minutes at work before leaving to conduct their personal business are taking what isn’t theirs - and giving their families a bad example”.

Well, the subsidy regarding my utility bill is legitimate so what about €3 million which the Gozo ministry did not account for such as the €1 million going to questionable overtime and allowance, the St Joseph home received more than a million euros in rent while still closed but is now operating. Last but not least, according to an audit, about €1.1 million worth of home help dished out to people in Gozo. Surely, the taxpayer considers these millions as wasted, but the Gozo Ministry converts them into votes. These millions could have been better utilised for the immediate Marsalforn Breakwater project.

Another project costing twice the normal market rate is that regarding rubble walls. The Ministry for Gozo spearheaded a project with EU funds to restore 30km of rubble walls across Gozo. This project consumed a staggering €10 million of EU funds. The EU is investigating how the payments ended up at twice the normal going rate.

Another employment scam is going on at Gozo Channel, obviously with the blessing of the Gozo Ministry 

Gozo Channel was employing 150 additional workers in 2021. Unlike its full-time fixed employees, who numbered 181 in 2021, private contractors hired these new recruits and received millions of euros a year for the contracts.

This is over and above other millions paid to a Greek company to provide Gozo Channel with an extra ferry with its own crew, which is setting the company back some €13,000 a day. Figures presented in parliament show that in 2021, Gozo paid various contractors almost €5 million for staff – equivalent to an average of €38,000 per hired employee.

Oh! I almost forgot. How about the Gozo museum? This project is still unfinished, despite being slated to open three years ago and having exceeded its budget threefold, from €1.2 million to over €4 million. This was the brainchild of Labour’s first minister for Gozo, Anton Refalo. By coincidence, the contractors chosen for this tender are the same contractors working on the Prime Minister’s private guesthouse in Xewkija.

So there it is. The message from Ministry for Gozo backed by Castille is “give the voters whatever they want as long as we get their vote”.

The sun’s rays are becoming dimmer, and soon it will be nightfall. Then we Gozitans realise with all this going around us enshrined in our passiveness, we discover ourselves in a ditch where only some of us can still see the stars.