Only days after the General Workers' Union, quite correctly, raised the issue over the Fairmount contract again, the government announced it planned to sell the shiprepair yard to an Italian company for €90.6 million (€52.7
million if paid today). The concession is for 30 years and the money will be paid in annual instalments.
Does all this close one of the saddest chapters in the history of the dockyard once and for all? Maybe, but until the yard is up and running again, there are a number of questions that would have to be answered. As was the case only a few days ago with the matter of the talks with Libya on oil exploration, the government is again being very sparing in the information it has given to the public about the conclusion of the talks with the Italian company.
Apart from the fact that the process for the privatisation of the shipyard was not handled well enough, why did the conclusion of the talks with the Italian company take so long? The dockyard, once Britain's most important shiprepair facility in the Mediterranean, had been given a good number of opportunities to become commercially viable since it was commercialised, but for a combination of factors, it never really made headway, despite all the efforts put in by successive governments, including, of course, by Dom Mintoff's socialist Administration.
Two main factors that had doomed commercialisation from the start were the easy-going "admiralty" mentality, which had once led Mr Mintoff to scold the workforce in no uncertain manner at Gavino Gulia Square, Cospicua, and, of course, the politicisation of the workplace, in which both the GWU and the Malta Labour Party had a strong hand. The history of the dockyard is littered with disputes and actions that arose out of political motives in the time when Labour was in opposition.
Matters changed a great deal in recent years but, despite the reforms that were carried out, the dockyard failed to become commercially viable. The latest effort was a seven-year restructuring programme that had been agreed upon with the European Union but even this foundered. The last nail in the coffin was the disastrous Fairmount contract, which, according to one report, meant a loss of €37 million, and according to the GWU, of €80 million.
The union has been calling for an inquiry into the contract as it holds the loss did not come about because of human error but because of mismanagement. It is also pointing to the possibility of corruption. The Times has already agreed with the GWU on the need for an inquiry and, considering the scale of the loss and the claims made by both the union and the firm that investigated the contract, it is unbelievable that the government has not done so yet. Indeed, the auditing firm that drew up the report had concluded that the job was a loss-making venture even before it even began.
But to go back to the privatisation of the shiprepair yard, what would have to be established now is whether the terms agreed upon with the Italian company were the best that could possibly be negotiated, even when considering the state in which the yard is to be taken over. Of particular importance, too, is the number of workers it will employ. Hopefully, the deal negotiated with the Italian company, and the sale of the yacht yard at Manoel Island, will lead to more prosperous times to both, in the interest of the operators and the country.