Gozo Channel outsourcing costs double in 2017

The employment of workers on the Gozo Channel ferry is increasingly being carried out through outsourcing services, parliamentary documents show.

Since Labour’s election in 2013, many of the new employment positions on the Gozo ferry have been carried out through sub-contracted agencies.

In the majority of cases, the company has contracted the companies through direct order rather than a public call for contracts.

In 2017, over €1.15 million was spent mainly in direct orders for the employment of at least 50 employees.

The data came in response to a PQ by Nationalist MP Chris Said.

It was well over double the figure of outsourced labour in 2016, which stood at €543,000, and that of 2015 at €168,000, while €130,000 was dished out in 2014 and just €5,000 in 2013 for accounting services.

An earlier PQ suggested that Gozo Channel had issued three-monthly contracts to security and cleaning companies in a bid to dish out jobs right before the 2017 election.

For example, the company paid €40,000 for a three-month contract awarded – by direct order – to Ozo Security Ltd, for the supply of 15 security officers at the terminals in Cirkewwa and Mgarr.

The contract was entered into effect on 28 April this year, days before the 2017 election was announced.

The Nationalist Opposition had then charged the Labour administration of using such service companies to employ Gozitans through the use of Gozo Channel’s outsourcing policy.

Another example was a new three-month contract in July awarded to Signal 8 Security Services Malta Ltd for 15 personnel at a cost of €83,241. The same company had already been contracted by Gozo Channel for the employment of mooring men in a contract that expired at the end of May.

In a new three-month contract issued by direct order, the company was paid a further €224,910 for the supply of 34 mooring men between 1 June and 31 August.

The company also approved by direct order a three-month extension to a contract previously awarded to Executive Security Services Ltd for the supply of 20 seamen on board the Gozo Channel vessels.

Executive Security was paid €57,206 for the provision of 20 seamen.

Another contractor, Trust Business Solutions JV, was paid a total of €458,000 for the supply of some 17 cafeteria attendants on average in three direct orders.

Gozo Channel CEO Joe Cordina had previously stated that Gozo Channel’s outsourcing policy was informed by seasonality, likening the business to that of restaurants requiring less staff in low seasons.