Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/829524
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 28 MAY 2017 34 Letters Over Lm2.8 million was paid in salaries to workers at the Industrial Projects and Services Ltd last year, for the former dockyard workers seconded to local councils and government departments after the yards workforce was reduced in one of the country's heftiest restructur- ing programmes. There are 455 former dockyard work- ers who today perform duties under the umbrella of the IPSL – a surrogate entity which took in surplus workers from the dockyards when government cancelled Lm300 million in debt at the shipyards, and rechristened the company as Malta Shipyards Ltd. Last year, while the shipyards were still incurring losses, its former employees who were kept on the government's pay- roll earned Lm2,890,973 in salaries and another Lm22,468 in benefits. Another Lm10,065 was spent in service bonuses to dockyard workers who had reached 61 years of age and had retired from work according to their collective agreement. Since 4 November 2003, when govern- ment and the General Workers Union signed the IPSL agreement redeploying ex-shipyards workers to a multitude of government departments and agencies, the workers have been granted privi- leged conditions in relation to their new colleagues whose pay and benefits have remained the same. GWU Secretary General Tony Zarb, who signed the contract, had said the basis for the agreement was the condi- tion that the former shipyards employ- ees and other workers to be redeployed through IPSL had to retain their previ- ous conditions irrespective of where they would be posted and the kind of work they would be doing. Such jobs included handymen posts with local councils, or other semi- skilled postings in government depart- ments. Several government workers rede- ployed through IPSL are getting as much as Lm100 more than their colleagues per week for the same jobs and enjoy- ing better working conditions in what is becoming a highly frustrating situation concocted by the government and the General Workers Union. Last year, the Office of the Prime Minister confirmed the inconsistent working conditions but refused to state the extent of the discrepancies. Lm2.8m in salaries for former dockyard workers 17 December, 2006 Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. Untrue allegations against Allied Newspapers The board of directors of Allied Newspa- pers Limited makes reference to the letter published in your paper on 21st May, 2017 under the heading of "A matter of public interest" signed by Robert Hornyold Strickland, and more particularly to the following two allegations contained in it: 1. "We have been informed by the board that all of Allied's detailed finan- cial records pre-2000 (relating to several million euros of irregular dividends paid to the Strickland Foundation before they were even registered as a shareholder), have allegedly been destroyed." First of all the company refutes that there were any irregularities concerning either the dividends or the registration of company shareholding. The Allied Group condemns the airing in public of matters which are sub judice thereby disturb- ing its right to a fair and serene judicial hearing. This right is of a greater public interest than the commercial interests of any party to a court case. The group will therefore limit itself to issues which are not subject to court hearing. Allied Newspapers categorically refutes the wholly incorrect and baseless allega- tion that information on the payment of company dividends was destroyed. On the contrary the company had supplied Mr Hornyold Strickland with detailed infor- mation of such payments. Mr Hornyold Strickland on requesting information which is confidential between the com- pany and the other shareholders to which he was not entitled to, was informed that the company was not in the position to comply with this request. Mr Hornyold Strickland was informed also that some detailed information re- quested by him which stretched over the time-span of 29 years starting from 1988, could have been purged as allowed by law. Mr Hornyold Strickland has never queried the correctness of any company dividend allocation or any dividend payment made to him. In fact he has clearly stated that this matter is not the subject of conten- tion between him and the company. 2. The company also makes refer- ence to another allegation, namely that the terms of reference of the internal report into the allegations against former managing director Adrian Hillman "spe- cifically excluded any questions of Mario de Marco, the legal advisor to Allied, about his previously close friendship with Hillman." The company once more refutes this manifestly untrue statement since Allied Newspapers did not put any limits to the remit for the independent board of inquiry in its task, as stated publicly on 18 March, 2016, namely to "carry out an independent investigation of the public allegations of fraud and graft in regard to its former Group Managing Director, Mr Adrian Hillman, in the carrying out of his duties". In fact in the same statement it was stated that "The group is commit- ted to provide the board of inquiry with all the necessary means and information which it may request for the successful completion of its mandate." Finally, the company condemns the attempt by Mr Hornyold Strickland to politicise issues which are purely inter- nal to the company and of a commercial nature at this delicate moment preceding a general election. Stefan Frendo, Partner, Ganado Advocates Why such a 'snappy' snap election? Up until February of this year, the Prime Minister kept reiterating that the elections will take place in good time, more than once indicating that there was no year like 2018 for it to be in good time. On 20 April, a month ago, the Russian whistleblower, an ex-Pilatus Bank em- ployee, testified in the Magisterial inquiry looking into her allegations that the secret company Egrant's UBO is Michelle Mus- cat, the PM's wife. On 1st May, less than a month ago, and less than two weeks after the Rus- sian whistleblower gave evidence to the Magisterial inquiry, the PM called the snap election, giving the electorate the shortest-ever campaign on these Islands. What made the PM turn his back on what he had been saying, with such insistence, for months? As the magistrate conducting the inquiry has made known, the inquiry is a very complex affair that will take quite some time. That such an inquiry would take quite some time, was no doubt obvious, if not to the PM, certainly to his lawyers, well before the PM sent the whistleblower's al- legations for magisterial scrutiny. They would have pointed out to him that notwithstanding the time this inquiry needed to run its full course, it might be concluded before June 2018, the latest the elections could be held. So to avert the prospect of going to the polls after the inquiry was concluded and its findings made public, the PM called the snap election with Malta's shortest-ever campaign. And now he's accusing Simon Busuttil with delaying tactics so as to prevent the inquiry being concluded before the elec- tions. One can only hope that such see-through tactics will cost him heavily this 3rd June. Joe Genovese Birkirkara