(Adds ministry's reply)
PL spokesman Leo Brincat this afternoon called for the resignation of Resources Minister George Pullicino as well as the directors, who were mostly political appointees, of WasteServ.
Addressing a news conference, he said this was in view of the 13 pages of shortcomings listed by the auditor in the National Audit Office put on the table of the House yesterday.
Mr Brincat described the findings as “shocking, shameful and scandalous” and pointed out that in a recent Parliamentary committee hearing on black dust, the Mepa chairman had said that when he inherited Mepa, it had zero credibility. This was also when Mepa was under Minister Pullicino, so the only path open to him was to resign.
Mr Brincat gave a list of the main findings of the auditor’s report regarding Wasteserv, which showed that a number of procurement procedures were often not followed and that transparency left a lot to be desired.
The people, he said, were thirsty for good governance and the PL had been calling for a thorough investigation or independent auditing into the technical side of Wasteserv.
A PL government, he promised, would try to identify why there were so many shortcomings and how best to address them. This could only be done with further investigation into what happened, he said.
Mr Brincat noted that the auditor was so concerned by the findings that he decided to widen the investigation. He noted that there was a smell of corruption but said these things had yet to be proven.
Wasteserv, which was wholly owned by the government, he said, did not calculate Mepa, which was the regulator, and in many instances did not follow the required procedures.
As a result, fines due to wasteserv from contractors were not followed through because of a lack of appropriate enforcement.
“We are not against waste management, we are against mismanagement in waste management,” Mr Brincat said.
In a reply, the Rural Affairs Ministry said that as in other occasions, Mr Brincat was basing his arguments on the wrong premise.
Mr Brincat, the ministry said, could not be taken seriously. He was now saying that he was in favour of waste management but always hindered the government's plans for the country to treat waste and generate energy from it.
Mr Brincat had also encouraged the collection of a petition against the modernisation of the Sant'Antnin plant.
Had it been for the opposition, Maghtab would still be open and the country would still be using that rubbish dump without control to the detriment of the people's health.
The fact that waste management was a success story hurt the Labour Party so it was trying to haze the government's achievements in the sector.