A foreign forensic analyst commissioned by the General Workers’ Union to analyse secret recordings made public by the Nationalist Party prior to the election concluded that the excerpts had been “maliciously” edited.

The expert, Ian McArthur, found that one recording had been edited five times while the second had been edited twice.

This, according to GWU lawyer Aaron Mifsud Bonnici, showed how the PN had “maliciously” edited the recordings taken during a two-hour lunch conversation to “manipulate” the message and place the union and its officials in a bad light.

In these recordings, broadcast by the PN in February at the height of the general election campaign, union general secretary Tony Zarb is heard making comments about helping a cleaning contractor in tendering processes.

Addressing a press conference yesterday, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the expert’s report will be submitted as evidence in court in libel proceedings which are due to start on Friday.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the expert concluded that the two recordings had been heavily edited to give one impression when the discussion throughout the meeting was different. One excerpt was one minute, 16 seconds long while the other one was one minute, seven seconds long.

He said the recordings broadcast by the PN were “taken out of context” and did not reflect what had originally been discussed. The expert said the editing was “crude”.

The company and its owner, Dominic Gafà, hit the headlines following the release of a recording taken at a lunch meeting with Mr Zarb in June 2012.

Mr Gafà was one of four people present at the meeting during which people are heard saying they would be able to assist Mr Gafà’s company with tenders, particularly under a Labour government, should his employees join the GWU.

Mr Zarb had reacted by saying that the meeting was held to discuss precarious working conditions that Mr Gafà was imposing on his employees and his suggestion was that the GWU would give the company good references if it treated its employees well.

He argued this would be more the case under a Labour government because the party had vowed to discriminate against companies that employed people under precarious conditions.

Yesterday, Mr Zarb insisted he was not the one who had said he would help Mr Gafà with tenders if Labour was elected to power.

He pointed out that a number of people within the PN, including leader Lawrence Gonzi, deputy leader Simon Busuttil and general secretary Paul Borg Olivier had called for his resignation, adding that he now expected them to retract their statement and apologise.

The GWU received the report late last February, shortly before the general election. According to Dr Mifsud Bonnici, the union opted not to publicise it at the time since it felt that the issue of precarious employment had already been politicised enough.

The PN in a statement denied manipulating the recordings, adding they were only edited to protect the identity of persons who were present at the meeting.

It said the union was resorting to “intimidation” to “irresponsibly try to influence the case”.

Meanwhile, during yesterday’s event, Mr Zarb said the union had received another five reports of precarious working conditions which it was now investigating.

One was about workers at Bad Boy Cleaners, who were being paid €4.54 an hour with an overtime rate of €3.50 an hour instead of €6.81. Moreover, workers also complained that they were working excessive hours.

Another report was against a company of mini buses (which the workers instructed the union not to name for now) who was paying employees €3.50 an hour.

Employees employed by Gafa Saveways at the Qormi Health Centre have no leave and no sick leave entitlement. Moreover, they were working more than 40 hours without getting paid for the extra hours and were not paid extra on Sundays and public holidays.

Employees with the same contractor at the Malta International Airport and St Vincent de Paul were not being paid overtime at the proper rate.

The last report was about Clentex employees at Mount Carmel Hospital who were being paid at €3.96 an hour, even for overtime hours, when they should be paid €5.95 an hour for overtime. Mr Zarb said the union had adopted a name-and-shame policy in its efforts to eradicate precarious employment.