I refer to the letter "Facing facts" by George Farrugia (April 27) about the civil service collective agreement.

Mr Farrugia took Gejtu Vella, UHM general secretary to task because the latter defended public service employees when Mr Vella insisted that "instead of writing off any salary increases, the government should seriously see how it could trim its expenditure".

Mr Vella was proved right when recently Finance Minister John Dalli stated that if the government trims its expenditure by seven per cent the deficit would be controlled. And Mr Dalli was not referring to cutting of wages and salaries but to other expenditure. I think that Mr Farrugia knows of the number of `consultants` in government service, who are paid thousands of liri when they are performing duties which should have been given to directors or assistant directors. Everyone knows that `consultants` are not government employees and they are not recruited by the UHM or other unions.

Mr Farrugia referred to a group of seven government workers working at Tal-Barrani Road, who, in his opinion, were inefficient. I am not contradicting this because I have no knowledge of it. But everyone knows about Qormi Road, in which a private contractor was doing the works and the long period it took to be finished. On this issue even Qormi local council made a judicial protest in court. So it is not fair that Mr Farrugia blames only public service employees.

On the issue of surplus government workers raised by Mr Farrugia, it must be stated that these surplus workers are only in certain grades, while in other grades there are vacant posts. When criticising public service employees Mr Farrugia must be specific and not generic. Are nurses, paramedics, social security employees, licensing employees, treasury employees and others not efficient?

Recently Joe Borg, Minister of Foreign Affairs, praised public service employees for their hard and efficient work done in the process of Malta`s application for joining the European Union.

I have always heard Mr Vella stress the fact that workers, including public service workers, must have an ongoing retraining so that their skills will be enhanced and they would be more productive. Where there are surplus workers in the public sector they must be retrained and put on productive work. I am sure that the UHM will stick to this statement by its general secretary.

I am also sure that by enforcing a wage freeze for public service employees, demotivation will prevail as was the case between the years 1980-1986 when a general wage freeze was enforced. Everyone must hope that a compromise between the government and the UHM will be found on the wage rise issue in the best interest of everybody.