GRTU denies being under police investigation

The GRTU was reacting to reports appearing on Labour organ Kullhadd on Sunday which said that police had confirmed that GRTU and its recyclable waste scheme company GreenMT were under investigation by Police.

The report follows in the wake of revelations by MaltaToday that GreenMT inflated its 2009 waste collection figures by collecting waste from local councils which had no contractual agreement with the scheme.

MaltaToday had also revealed how GreenMT admitted to collecting “grey bags” from councils which at the time did not have a contractual agreement with either of Malta’s two waste recovery schemes.

In its report on Sunday, Kulhadd said that former Sliema local council mayor Nikki Dimech had alleged that Nationalist Party secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier had given him instructions to award a €1.2 million contract with GreenMT to provide waste-gathering services to the Sliema council.

The report adds that the tender agreement between the Sliema Council and GreenMT was signed in Dimech’s absence and was drawn up between the council’s executive secretary, and GRTU director Vince Farrugia for GreenMT.

GRTU however rejected the reports, saying that neither it or GreenMT are under investigation by police. It hit out at the paper’s report, describing it a “misleading and libellous fabrication” and a “glaring lapse of diligence on behalf of the paper’s editor.”

GRTU also denied that GreenMT ever signed a €1.2 million contract for Sliema council.

The Approving Body for eco-contributions gave a ‘ruling’ on the issue in early August. In its ruling, the approving body said that it “is in receipt of the invoices that show that GreenMT paid for the waste collected from these four localities in question during the period June – December, 2009.”

“Therefore it transpires that some form of contractual obligation existed which allowed GreenMT to pay for and collect waste from these localities," GRTU said.

“As a result, the Approving Body (Eco-Contributions) is of the opinion that, prima facia, GreenMT paid for the waste and therefore had the right and obligation to include the waste collected form these localities in their report,” it concluded.

In the same report however, it also said that “schemes are obliged to collect the percentage of their waste from Local Councils. In order to achieve this target, schemes enter into agreements with Local Councils. The Approving Body (Eco-Contributions) is not party to these agreements.”

However, MaltaToday’s original reports had revealed that the GRTU had collected grey bags from councils with which it had no agreement. This was confirmed by the GRTU itself, which was asked for comments when the story was published.