Karl Schembri
A discrepancy of Lm18 (€41.93), which cost the Water Services Corporation’s head of public relations his job five years ago, has bounced back on the same government company that sacked him: now ordered to pay €41,696 for unfair dismissal.
The Industrial Tribunal ruled at the end of last month that WSC had to pay its former public relations head, Joseph Mercieca, after unlawfully terminating his employment. The corporation has appealed the case.
Mercieca was summarily fired on 10 July 2003, after working on definite contracts with the corporation for a total of 10 years.
According to WSC Chief Executive Anthony Rizzo, Mercieca was in charge of buying newspapers for the corporation over the weekend, out of his own expenses, and would then be reimbursed against receipts.
Rizzo alleged that at a certain point, when the corporation was verifying the amounts claimed by Mercieca by confronting them with the actual newspapers he had bought, “certain discrepancies emerged”.
Mercieca testified how in April 2003, Communications Manager Paul Portelli had queried him about three receipts used to claim reimbursement. Within a few days, the Chief Executive confronted him with receipts presented by himself accusing him of defrauding WSC between Lm18 and Lm25 (€41.93 and €58.23).
Rizzo had claimed the prices of local newspapers shown on the receipts were above the cost price. He then put him on forced leave until 9 May, informing him that the case would lead to his dismissal.
On 9 May, Mercieca, accompanied by his lawyer, was called in by the chief executive, who alleged that the employee had inflated his claims for reimbursement by Lm18.25 between September 2002 and April 2003.
Mercieca told the tribunal however that the timeframe and the documentation they presented him with did not tally with the claims made earlier by the chief executive. Mercieca also claimed with the tribunal that he was never given copies of the corporation’s spreadsheets of expenses that were being used against him. On 10 May 2003, he was informed that his job had been terminated.
The corporation also justified the dismissal on the grounds that the situation had led to “loss of trust” in Mercieca.
Rizzo also alleged in front of the tribunal that Mercieca had taken for himself wine bottles bought for a press conference – an allegation deemed “irrelevant to the case” by the tribunal, which established that no other disciplinary procedures were ever taken in his regard.
On the contrary, Mercieca was given a 5% performance bonus between 1999 and 2002, which was raised to 7% in 2003. Mercieca produced a letter dated 1 April 2003 – a month prior to his dismissal – stating that his performance was “commendable” while informing him of his bonus.
Chaired by Alphonse Caruana, with James Pearsall and Michael J. Mallia as members, the Industrial Tribunal ruled on 22 September this year that WSC had dismissed Mercieca unreasonably and unfairly, and ordered it to pay him €41,696 within six weeks of the decision.

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