Wasteserv CEO Tonio Montebello on Tuesday continued to defend pre-election recruitment at the waste company, arguing that people were not hired capriciously.

Early this month, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard how WasteServ recruited 72 workers, two weeks prior to the June 2017 general election.

The Opposition has characterised the spike in employment as being politically motivated, particularlysince over 30 per cent of those recruited before the election hailed from the district contested by Environment Minister Jose Herrera.

READ: Wasteserv accused of employing 112 workers pre-election

A PAC investigation into Wasteserv’s recruitment policies was subsequently launched.

Fielding questions before the committee, Mr Montebello explained that the vacancies were filled through recruitment by sub-contractors.

He argued that Wasteserv was not actually recruiting workers. Rather, he said, it was buying a service from these sub-contractors.

Mr Montebello confirmed that all those recruited were put on indefinite contracts.

Questioned how Wasteserv could put them on indefinite contracts if it was buying a service, Mr Montebello said whenever workers did not perform, Wasteserv would ask the sub-contractors to send them other workers.

The Wasteserv CEO assured that the agency did not hire workers capriciously.

He repeated previous statements that the work done at WasteServ was labour intensive.