An out-of-control Gozo ministry

Nationalist Party  MP Graziella Attard Previ stood up in Parliament to ask a very valid question of the Prime Minister: Would Robert Abela ask the National Audit Office (NAO) to investigate those public service workers in Gozo who regularly leave their workplace by 10 am.

Abela sprang into action.  Instead of answering the question, he launched into a cynical attack against the MP and her party.  “It’s extremely ironic that the Opposition is attacking Gozitan workers in the public service at the same time that it elected a party leader from Gozo,” he said.

Attard Previ hadn’t attacked Gozitan public servants.  Quite the contrary. She was demanding that hard-working Gozitan civil servants are not abused by the favoured few who are allowed to shirk their responsibilities and dump them onto the hard-working ones.

Attard Previ was demanding that the Ministry for Gozo and Planning treat all public sector workers fairly.  She was insisting that the Ministry implement the recommendations of the NAO and ensure that those employees who disappear from their workplace before 10 am are taken to task.

More importantly, Attard Previ was asking why those privileged Gozitan civil servants who work only two hours on Sundays and public holidays are paid a full day’s salary.

Of course, Robert Abela knows exactly what’s happening at the Ministry.  The NAO gave him a detailed report of the chaos and abuse within that Ministry way back in 2021.

In 2025,  the NAO reported back on its review of the Gozo Ministry’s performance.  It found nothing much had changed in four years.

Out of four major recommendations the NAO made in 2021, the Gozo ministry had only fully implemented just one, and it won’t be implementing the 2021 recommendations any time soon.

The Minister is allowing a situation where the privileged few are not only allowed to disappear from their place of work whenever they please, but they’re also being paid hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ euro for fictitious overtime hours.

If Minister Clint Camilleri were to clamp down on those perks, he could kiss his job goodbye.  Those ‘special’ arrangements for his chosen few are what win him precious votes that put him in pole position to keep his Cabinet post.

The Auditor General highlighted that the Gozo Ministry Strategy and Support Division spent €956,120 in overtime and allowances for claims it described as “vague” and “habitual”. Fifty per cent of all overtime within the Gozo ministry went to that single division.

The NAO found that there was a “total lack of control” over overtime.  It found that attendance sheets supporting those overtime claims were completely unreliable.

The NAO found that €815,000 was paid out in allowances in that Gozo ministry division, but it could not determine what they were for or where they went.

“The required documentation was not made available for audit purposes,” the NAO said, “notwithstanding reminders”.

The Gozo ministry not only paid hundreds of thousands of euro to its chosen few but then actively obstructed the work of the NAO by refusing to provide the necessary documentation.

What little documentation could be scrutinised revealed that a photographer at the Cultural Heritage Directorate was performing overtime as a Head Beach Supervisor.

An Assistant Foreman at the Public Cleansing Section carried out overtime at the Civil Abattoir as well as a Beach inspector.  His overtime was not paid at the rate due for the work as a beach inspector but at the rate of an assistant foreman.

When the NAO went back to check whether its recommendations had been implemented, it found nothing had changed.  One officer’s clocking sheet was completely illegible, and yet continued to be certified as correct.

An assistant principal was paid a total of 395 overtime hours – that’s ten weeks of work in just 13 weeks between mid-July and the first week of October.

A worker who performed just two hours of overtime on Sunday and public holidays was paid a full day’s overtime pay.

The NAO found that overtime claims were “habitual” and that their justification was repeatedly listed as “for work at the civil abattoir as a carcass loader”. Other vague justifications included “pressure of work”, “duty on weekends and public holidays” and “extra supervision duties”.

Despite the NAO’s 2021 warnings and recommendations, in 2025 it still found overtime work being carried out for prolonged periods.  Out of eight workers sampled, six performed overtime for six consecutive months and one for 12 consecutive months.

One Gozitan privileged civil servant had 65 full days’ worth of overtime approved over a period of nine months.

The NAO identified the Ministry for Gozo and Planning as the worst-performing ministry in terms of implementing recommendations.  Minister Clint Camilleri knows exactly what’s going on in his ministry. So does Prime Minister Abela. The NAO has made it explicitly clear  – it’s rampant looting of state funds with the explicit blessing of the Minister.

Camilleri and Abela know the Auditor General is absolutely right in demanding action to safeguard the interests of the nation. The NAO expects the Labour government to rein in the uncontrolled spending of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ euro in unnecessary and dubious overtime claims for the chosen ones.

Abela cannot answer Graziella Attard Previ in parliament.  So, instead, he falsely accuses her and her party of “attacking the public service to stop the progress Malta and Gozo are making”.

He accused her of “attacking Gozitan workers”. Attard Previ did no such thing.  She’s demanding justice for those truly hardworking Gozitans who strive to do their public duty while their privileged colleagues are nowhere to be found and yet collect undeserved windfalls through their phoney exorbitant overtime claims.

What is the Minister paying those favoured Gozitan workers hundreds and thousands for? Why hasn’t he implemented the 2021 NAO recommendations? Why has the Prime Minister not taken Camilleri to task for his utter failure to rein in the blatant financial abuse?

Robert Abela can’t keep evading these burning questions with his malicious attacks forever.