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Kurt Sansone
After months of skiving from their place of work, two IPSL employees seconded with the Msida local council, were suspended on Friday after seriously threatening the council Secretary, who enquired about their absence from assigned duties.
The case is to be referred to the police after one of the workers threatened to attack the female council Secretary, MaltaToday has learned.
Industrial Projects and Services Limited (IPSL) is the company created to absorb all the employees made redundant from the Drydocks and other restructured government entities such as PBS and Malta Enterprise.
Contacted by MaltaToday, an Investments Ministry spokesperson confirmed the suspension but refrained from giving any detail. “We are zero tolerant of this kind of behaviour,” the spokesperson told MaltaToday.
This newspaper can reveal that the two workers assigned with the Msida local council since April, always insisted on going directly to their assigned duties and sign in at the local council office afterwards. A preliminary investigation conducted by the council found that on a number of occasions the employees turned up for work at around 11am after spending the early morning hunting.
On Thursday, the two employees reported at the Msida council office at 7.30am and informed the deputy secretary that they were going on an errand at the IPSL. At around 10am the two employees phoned back to inform the council that they were not going to be able to make it back for the day.
When the executive secretary was informed of this she contacted one of the two IPSL employees and asked him whether the day was going to be deducted from his leave entitlement. It seems that the news did not go down too well and amid torrents of blasphemy the employee informed the Secretary that he would be going to the council on Friday to explain his absence.
The Secretary then contacted the second employee on his mobile phone but it was his wife who answered. The Secretary told the wife not to worry and informed her that she (the Secretary) was only phoning her husband because she wanted to talk to him and he was not at the council office at that particular point in time.
A couple of minutes later the second employee called back and took umbrage at the fact that the council Secretary talked to his wife. He threatened the Secretary and told her he would be coming to the council office the following day (Friday) attack her with a mallet (“Intik daqqa’ ta’ mazza u nifthek ktieb” – literally translated as “I’ll hit you with a mallet and open you like a book”).
On being informed of the situation, the Department of Local Councils asked IPSL not to assign the two to any other local council. On Friday IPSL officials suspended the two employees and the case is to be referred to the police for further investigation.
kurt@newsworksltd.com
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