The government is winding up a security and guard services company set up just years ago, Times of Malta is informed.
Keys Security Services Ltd, a subsidiary of Malta Industrial Parks, the government’s entity responsible for the management of industrial estates, was set up in 2016 with the intention of providing security services at government properties.
However, no detailed information was forthcoming on the setting up and function of the company and Malta Industrial Parks CEO, Karl Azzopardi, said it is no longer in business.
The only set of accounts published so far by the company showed it employed almost 40 people in 2016.
No specific information was provided as to which entities made use of the company’s services, how were the security guards recruited and what happened to them once they were no longer on the company’s books.
“The company does not have any employees on its books and, in fact, we are in the process to liquidate this company accordingly,” Mr Azzopardi said.
Pressed to say how recruitment was done and what happened to the employees, he said the company offered guarding services to properties that “belonged to the government at the time”.
“As for the then existing employees, we understand that these were originally employed through the standard JobsPlus procedure” and that the “remaining employees were assigned to other entities,” he said.
Sources close to Malta Industrial Parks said the only reason the security firm had been set up was to employ people.
Times of Malta is informed that the majority of those employed by the company hailed from localities within the electoral districts contested by Economy Minister Chris Cardona.
“The employees were eventually transferred onto the books of other government agencies, making their recruitment look regular,” the sources said.
Dr Cardona had set up another security services agency – Fort Security Services Ltd – in 2015. It had soon emerged that the 18-year-old nephew of the minister’s chief of staff had been appointed company director.
Fort Security Services Ltd is still in existence although it does not seem to be commercially active.
Keys Security, whose directors were Mr Azzopardi and lawyer Katrina Borg Cardona, is dormant.