Sea Malta's privatisation may fall through

The privatisation of Sea Malta may actually fall through as Atlantica SpA, a company belonging to the Grimaldi Group, which was buying Sea Malta, will be exercising its right not to proceed with the purchase of the Government's 69 per cent shareholding, sources confirmed yesterday.

Atlantica should have taken over Sea Malta on Friday, but the Italian company has decided to withdraw after the General Workers Union backtracked on an agreement they had reached with Atlantica.

Both sides had agreed to discuss the changes of the tour of duty from the present 15 days on/15 days off to a two months on/one month off tour of duty. The agreement was brokered and announced by IT and Investments Minister Austin Gatt on November 4.

The ministry had said that the company and the GWU would discuss the new seafarers' duties in detail. In the meantime, there will be a transition period between the current system of 15 days on/15 days off and the new one. This period will end on December 31.

The GWU had argued that under the agreement, seafarers would continue to enjoy all the conditions stipulated in the current collective agreement. This meant that workers would be retaining the 15 days on/15 days off system until the end of the year, but discussions on possible alternatives were to start with the company immediately.

But the GWU has since backed out of the scheduled discussion on implementation of the new tours of duty and informed Atlantica it is not prepared to consider anything but the present 15 days/15 days off regime.

Sources said Atlantica was "fast losing interest" because of the union's intransigence.

The agreement to transfer shares from the government to Atlantica was signed on October 21. The two sides agreed that the shares would be transferred after discussions with the GWU on the employees' conditions and Atlantica reserved the right to back out of the deal if the union did not agree to changes in the seamen's tours of duty.

Despite an agreement to discuss the roster issue, two days before the scheduled takeover GWU section secretary Emanuel Zammit informed Atlantica's management that the union was no longer considering itself bound by the November 4 agreement and that as far as it was concerned, only a 15 days on/15 days off tour of duty would be acceptable.

Mr Zammit informed Atlantica that his position was still pending the sanction of the GWU's secretary-general, Tony Zarb, and a vote among the employees but that in any case both ratifications were a foregone conclusion. Mr Zammit however promised Atlantica to give an answer by Friday. Atlantica heard nothing from the GWU on Friday and therefore decided not to take over the company.

Sources said Atlantica's managing director Emanuele Grimaldi last week informed Government about his intention to significantly increase the initial capital investment so that they could relaunch the company with a bang.

The government had made it clear that it can no longer subsidise the company and Minister Gatt had warned employees that if the sale did not go through, Sea Malta would have to be declared bankrupt.

Sources said the government may withdraw all letters of comfort to the company which would mean that Sea Malta would be declared bankrupt. Employees will be able to expect priority in the liquidation of the company's assets and receive three months' salary.

The government has also committed itself not to fund any further redundancy payments beyond the amounts established by law, and not the rather generous payments which in a particular case reach nearly Lm60,000.

When contacted, a government spokesman said "hopefully the GWU will fulfil its duty and obligations towards all the employees and not only towards a few of them who only care about their personal interests."

The GWU's section secretary was not available for comment.