Environment Minister Leo Brincat laid into WasteServ for its myriad bad practices, saying he had now commissioned a team of independent technical people to identify all the shortcomings.

Whoever thought that tearing up records would hide anything was very wrong

Although waste management did not only include WasteServ, the organisation was the ful-crum of bad practices where internal auditors had been unable to do a good job for years. On his recent visit he had decided to meet only the workers, who had disclosed unknown aspects, rather than the directors who he knew would only have given him half-truths.

The WasteServ board’s performance was so bad that waste, credited as being a resource, was not even on the inventory. It was difficult to reconcile output and input. There were massive cost overruns and project delays.

The board had never replied to the auditors’ questions on the Għallis engineered landfill.

There were inefficiencies in purchasing and inventory, and inadequate stock control. And then the board had felt “aggrieved” because the auditors had come up with 11 pages of shortcomings.

The projected Sant’Antnin plant in the north was showing the same shortcomings as the ones in Marsascala. Mepa, the regulator, had scaled back its inspections from monthly to quarterly.

Mr Brincat said that whoever thought that tearing up records at WasteServ would hide anything was very wrong. He would not make programmed visits, when he was sure to find everything spic and span.