Wasteserv has dismissed allegations of misconduct and improperly transporting contaminated COVID-19 waste in Gozo as “unsubstantiated and false” and blamed a rogue worker for the claims. 

The allegations, published by Nationalist Party media over a series of days this month, accused the state waste agency of running a chaotic operation in Gozo, with reports of bullying and workers breaching health and safety standards and falsifying documents to transport COVID-19 waste.

But on Saturday, Wasteserv said that the allegations were “concocted by an individual with a questionable track record at Wasteserv” and that an internal review of the claims made in the articles found no evidence to substantiate them. 

Waste from Gozo’s COVID-19 swabbing centre in Xewkija was handled by a private contractor who was completely separate to Wasteserv, it noted. 

Documentation issued by hospital authorities also showed that there was “absolutely no truth” to claims that COVID-19 waste was illicitly transported using falsified documents, it added. 

“Such declarations, for which there is a clear audit trail, are never tampered with, and the individual making the claim could not corroborate his allegation when requested to do so,” the agency said. 

The Gozo operation which was alleged to be mismanaged had obtained ISO45001:2018 Occupational Health & Safety Management System certification on September 7 following a months-long ISO certification process, Wasteserv added.

Auditors found “zero non-conformities” with the operation, Wasteserv said. 

The agency also denied a report claiming that one of its trucks was told to disembark a Gozo Channel ferry “some days ago”. According to company records, it said, the last such incident dated back to 2019 and involved “the same individual now making the claims”. 

Wasteserv said PN media had repeated the claims as fact without trying to verify them and suggested the articles were part of an attempt to "to tarnish a government entity that is attaining successful results".