The former chief of staff of the Office of the Prime Minister, Keith Schembri, has stated, under oath, that he spends up to 25 per cent of his normal working day interviewing persons for jobs with the public sector.
This supposedly pro-business ex-chief of staff also revealed that the OPM conducts an average of 30 such interviews every day.
From this sworn admission, one can conclude that, even if the pro-business OPM does not offer public sector jobs to all the people who are interviewed, there must be the equivalent of at least two employees in that office who are engaged in dispensing jobs in the public sector on a full-time basis – more if one factors in the espressos, guided tours and photo shoots following the interview.
The pro-business OPM would be busy luring people away from productive private employment into phantom jobs.
I am positive that if the outgoing prime minister were to be asked about these revelations, he would distance himself by saying that such dealings were conducted without his knowledge and consent. He would deny any wrongdoing.
We now have confirmation that a certain Melvin Theuma was given a full-time post in the public sector for which he was remunerated even though he never bothered to turn up for work.
The OPM can be accused of bypassing all normal recruitment procedures in this case, but some smart lawyer would retort that such procedures may be sidestepped in cases of ‘positions of trust’.
Just what Theuma was entrusted with by the State is yet to be fully determined, but it is pertinent to point out that the number of persons of trust has swollen in the past years and now exceeds the 700 mark. In most cases, their duties and conditions of employment are a state secret.
Whoever is going to take the pilot’s seat in a few weeks’ time will need to make some drastic, possibly painful manoeuvres to reboot our moral compass
In the situation the country is in, it might be a consolation that there are at least 700 trustworthy people on the island, people like Neville Gafà who has been recommended for the contribution he is giving to the country.
Like the Almighty, Mr Gafà moves in mysterious ways. As he teleports between government departments and between countries, the nature of this contribution is too sensitive to be shared with us mere mortals.
In a recent survey among companies conducted by the Malta Employers’ Association, 18 per cent of respondents replied that one reason that accounts for a higher labour turnover in their organisation is employment with the public sector.
Companies have reported that there has been a drain in their human resources. In some cases, skilled employees have resigned their post to take up lower skilled jobs – even at lower remuneration – with the public sector.
Whether they obtained such jobs through a call for applications or else through the Castille channel is not clear, but the result is that, in a nearly full employment situation, most of these people have been replaced by non-Maltese employees.
The extent to which the number of foreign employees in the private sector has increased as a result of phantom jobs in the public sector is unknown.
What is certain, however, is that an artificial inflation of our labour force has a negative impact on the country’s competitiveness. It also adds pressure to our infrastructure, for example through higher rents and property prices which are being paid for by honest working men and women.
Now we are extending our gratitude to some of these non-Maltese working families by telling them that they need to be separated from their children if they want to continue working here.
This plane is losing altitude fast. Whoever is going to take the pilot’s seat in a few weeks’ time will need to make some drastic, possibly painful manoeuvres to reboot our moral compass and take us out of this tragic tailspin.
Joseph Farrugia is director general, Malta Employers’ Association.