In the golden years of Labour that today are reincarnating with brutal vengeance, there was one dream job for those working-class Labour supporters that still multiply profusely in the south of the island: a watchman on the government’s payroll.
“Watchman mal-gvern” was seen as the pinnacle of success. It meant sleeping on the job by night and waking up refreshed in the morning to go out hunting or to a second, black job. Landing a job with the government was not a career move but the acquisition of a secure, basic income that left you with ample time to do other things on the side. That mindset has not changed.
The setting up of Fort Securities Ltd by Economic Services Minister Chris Cardona caters for exactly that demand.
It is a government-owned company, not part of the civil service, which means the recruitment of Labour watchmen would be more flexible but also easier for a future Nationalist government to close it down and stop this waste of public funds.
Gullible Labour voters will not see the difference and would still think they have landed a “job mal-gvern”, ensuring their eternal party loyalty, or at least until the next election. Labour is well aware of the restlessness among its hardcore voters and this is their answer to demands for cosy jobs in the public sector. It does not think its average voter is capable of much more than watching over desolate sites. It may be right. What is funny is Labour’s obsession with uniforms.
In the 1970s, that great Labour visionary, Dom Mintoff, had given us the dejma work corps, men in uniform that didn’t do much but they all got to keep their pullovers that became a fashion trend in working class districts for many years after.
More recently, recruitment in the Civil Protection Department became more flexible, ignoring the requirement of a good police conduct certificate. The result is that convicted criminals can now don uniforms, and save lives, of course.
TVM has even reported that there are plans to increase the size of the army by another 500. Recruitment will be staggered, to reach a peak just before the election, no doubt.
But we must not rush to conclusions. Labour may be genuinely concerned at the declining sense of discipline on this island, now that we found out that our police officers like switching their uniforms for business suits.
In Parliament, Cardona was difficult to pin down on facts. He didn’t refer to the employment of watchmen but of security officers. True, in the movie The Full Monty we all saw what a smart, security guard uniform can do to a rugged group of misfits but, in reality, the job remains very much the same.
A watchman today would still miss out on some of the more refined subtleties of nightlife, like pole dancing, but any internet-savvy security guard can easily find alternatives. Once the Fort Securities watchmen get unionised, with the General Workers’ Union, no doubt, free wi-fi spots at the workplace should be the union’s foremost demand.
Cardona said Fort Securities was needed to watch over companies in liquidation, like Malta Shipbuilding, which had been pilfered of copper because of those neglectful nasty Nationalists.
He really couldn’t have chosen a worst example of wastage of taxpayer money.
Malta Shipbuilding, another brainchild of (visionary) Mintoff, was established in 1976. This useless company was only kept afloat by heavy government assistance.
‘Watchman mal-gvern’ was seen as the pinnacle of success. It meant sleeping on the job by night and waking up refreshed in the morning to go out hunting or to a second, black job
It employed over 800 workers, mostly staunch Labour supporters, and the few vessels they ever produced included timber carriers for the Soviet Union, which were sold at a loss.
Cardona was right in accusing the Nationalist Party of negligence with public property. They should have closed Malta Shipbuilding years earlier. The theft of copper just pales in comparison with the multiple millions of Maltese liri this Mintoffian project cost the country. But Cardona says he is concerned about the theft of copper. That’s why he desperately needs those watchmen there in Marsa, as much as Labour desperately needs to win back its neglected hardcore that once ‘worked’ there.
Cardona claimed that Fort Securities would save the country money, which prompted Nationalist deputy leader Mario de Marco to ask if this new company would be competing with public security firms for government tenders. It was a logical question.
De Marco had to ask the question twice until Cardona finally conceded that the company would be providing internal services, which means direct orders. Clearly, Labour doesn’t like security companies but that’s not because it is not business friendly, we all know it is. It doesn’t like them because they’ve overstepped their limit: ‘watchman mal-gvern’ is Labour territory.
Unfortunately, this shameless scam by Labour to employ watchmen has been overshadowed by the appointment of an 18-year-old as company director of Fort Securities. Yes, it smacks of nepotism but what doesn’t under Labour? He’s actually the right man for the job of running a company whose purpose is nepotism, the creation of watchmen jobs that can surely be provided at much cheaper prices by any private security firm.
We can only pity this intern company director who will be inundated with requests from Labour MPs on behalf of constituents who are politically qualified for the job of watchmen after having waited so long for justice to be done with them by bountiful Labour.
It was Nationalist deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami who drove this point home when he reminded Cardona in Parliament that he had asked him four times about “security officers” already working at Malta Shipbuilding and who all, by coincidence, came from Cardona’s electoral district. They boasted of doing nothing at all when at work, Fenech Adami said.
Cardona initially dodged that question, which prompted Fenech Adami to stand up yet again to ask where did these Birkirkara watchmen come from, when and how were they employed and how were they selected. In the end, a cornered Cardona, had to reply.
The minister said the criteria used to employ those watchmen were the same as those applied by the former Nationalist administration when it employed people in positions of trust.
Is this man serious? Did he really define the job of a watchman at a derelict, bankrupt company as a position of trust?
That Labour is corrupting the term ‘position of trust’ to the point of scandal comes as no surprise. Earlier this year, we learnt that the jobs of dog handler and maintenance officer also qualify as positions of trust under Labour.
This means they are employed and paid from taxpayer money without the need of going though a competitive exercise under the watchful eye of the Public Service Commission.
When asked if even cleaners should be engaged on a position of trust basis, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who once promised meritocracy, said that if he had a person in his office it should be someone he can trust. He probably meant he preferred a uniformed Labour cleaner from Cospicua who can’t read to a Nationalist cleaner who can.
But pride of place for position of trust employment goes to Minister Helena Dalli. Five drivers at her ministry qualified for that esteemed position. Now she has gone a notch higher by employing old Labour warhorse and Lorry Sant buddy Ronnie Pellegrini at her secretariat.
How on earth Dalli manages to reconcile the appointed of a dinosaur from those intolerant, despotic Labour golden years with her relentless campaign for gay tolerance and acceptance just beggars belief. Maybe she was too distracted fighting for the rights of minors to wear opposite-sex school uniforms that comply with their perceived identity.
Truly, someone at Mile End must have a fetish for uniforms.