Waste management agency WastServ was often used by Environment and Tourism ministry entities as a vehicle to employ workers, CEO Tonio Montebello told a parliamentary committee on Monday. 

In another heated Public Accounts Committee session, Mr Montebello said the the arrangement was permitted by the corporation’s Memorandum of Association.

Mr Montebello said that the decision to employ 72 workers, 47 of whom were then deployed in other units, in the two weeks prior to the 2017 general election was not unusual and had followed a discussion between Mr Montebello, Environment Minister José  Herrera and Wasteserv's chairman. No written instructions had been given, he said. 

When asked by committee chairman Beppe Fenech Adami why 30 per cent of the workers employed by Wasteserv during that period hailed from Dr Herrera's electoral district, Mr Montebello said he did not know. 

Later, answering Labour MP Julia Farrugia Portelli, Mr Montebello made clear that Dr Herrera had never given him any specific names for consideration.

Dr Fenech Adami alleged that Wasteserv had hired several workers it did not need just days before the election at the minister's behest. Some of these workers, the PN MP said, had previously been dismissed from the agency for disciplinary reasons. 

Dr Fenech Adami also questioned why 70 to 80 workers had been taken on by WasteServ immediately after a massive fire at its plant in Marsacala, prompting Mr Montebello to explain that following the incident, some tasks which used to be automated had to be done manually.