security – Amphora Media

By Julian Delia (cap.mt), Sabrina Zammit, Daiva Repečkaitė and Julian Bonnici

Total government expenditure on private security and labour services (2013 – 2024): €293 million.
The top 5 companies earned €270 million (92.2%).
- G4S: €150 million (51.2%)
- Signal 8: €60 million (20.4%)
- Kerber: €28 million (9.6%)
- Executive: €23 million (8%)
- Grange: €9 million (3%)
Research points toward questionable public procurement practices, including but not limited to:
- Direct orders above the €10,000 limit.
- Some contractors with direct access to lucrative public contracts have a documented history of questionable practices and/or brushes with the law.
- A total of 71 contractual variations in favour of the bidder after the tender is awarded.
- Connections between former and current politicians and government representatives, with a high volume of former AFM and police force officials.

You’ve seen them somewhere at least once.

Maybe it was a hospital, a school, or a car park. Government buildings, or entertainment venues like theatres and clubs.

For an island of Malta’s size, private security companies have a heavy presence wherever you look.

Despite its ubiquity, the private security industry rarely attracts media scrutiny, not unless a bouncer severely injures a random partygoer in Paceville.

In January, a joint investigation published by The Critical Angle Project and Amphora Media revealed that one security company alone secured almost €4 million in public procurement contracts over a period of less than a decade.

Today, we can further reveal that since the Labour Party swept to power in 2013, the government has spent a total of at least €293 million on services from companies involved in the private security industry.

In 2021 and 2023, the government spent more on acquiring services from these companies than it spent on salaries and wages at the police force and the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM).

To better understand this comparison, we consulted with a veteran of the police force regarding our findings. The source was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the devolution of some of the police force’s duties to civilians or private security personnel, especially with low-risk assignments like a public garden. We don’t need the police force to do everything, everywhere, which is what we used to do before,” our source said.

“Problems arise if the public procurement process rewards the same companies without any real competition. This, along with the failure to enforce adequate standards among security personnel, can form part of the kind of abusive practice that harms the integrity of the public service,” the source added.

There are 27 companies with a security license and an active presence in the market – 16 of those companies were recipients of public contracts.

While some of those companies focus entirely on providing security services, others also provide additional personnel specialisations ranging from cleaning to engineering to seafaring.

The total cited in this article refers to all contracts assigned to the license-holding companies we identified. Our analysis reveals that the private security sector’s largest companies have claimed the lion’s share of public procurement.

Out of the total pot of €293 million, €270 million went to G4S Security Services, Signal 8 Security Services, Kerber Security, Executive Security, and Grange Security.

Those five companies alone claimed 92% of all the public contracts examined in this analysis.

At the number one spot, the market’s polarisation becomes even more pronounced. In total, G4S earned €150 million – more than the rest of the top five combined. At the other end of the top five, Grange Security earned €9 million.

The remaining €23 million was distributed to a total of eleven companies.

The findings of our January investigation called into question the rigour of standards set for the industry. The company’s owner and director we investigated is a convicted sex offender and is known to be close to Gozo minister Clint Camilleri.

This instance of questionable standards is not an isolated case in this industry. Our analysis points towards questionable public procurement protocols and operators as well as a high level of overlap between the private security industry and former AFM and police force officials close to the Labour Party.

While not every company can be painted with the same brush, the number of red flags we found remains significant.

Questions were sent directly to the office of the prime minister prior to publication to discuss these issues.

G4S: The lion’s share

The largest company among them is G4S, which the De Martino family owns through a holding company named KDM Investments Ltd. G4S was first registered in Malta in 1998.

According to the company’s CEO, its global operations involve over 900,000 employees under the licence of G4S International.

G4S Malta’s executive chairperson and single largest shareholder is Kenneth De Martino.

G4S’ CEO, Edward Chetcuti, responded to our questions.

Chetcuti noted that G4S Malta is one of Malta’s largest employers, emphasising that 94% of his company’s 1,650 employees in Malta are locals. He further claimed that “circa 70%” of the country’s cash circulation and ATMs are managed by G4S.

When asked to comment specifically on the large amount of direct orders and tenders assigned to G4S, Chetcuti stated that G4S “has indeed delivered a substantial amount of security services to public entities.”

“It is significant to note that as a result of our participation in the public tenders and the subsequent delivery of public services, over 90% of all our revenue is redirected directly to our workforce by way of salaries. These figures reflect our role as a major employer and contributor to the local economy,” Chetcuti claimed.

“Like any other company we have a substantial amount of overheads that are required to deliver these services which are also recovered through the revenue generated from these contracts, leaving a marginal operating profit,” he added.

Chetcuti maintains that “all public contracts awarded to G4S Malta and any subsequent negotiated procedures have been secured through the official procurement process under procurement regulations and duly approved by the contracting authorities.”

Signal 8: The former SMU officer

While G4S claims the top spot, Signal 8 Security comes in second with a public procurement market share of €60 million, 20% of the contracts under analysis.

Signal 8 is owned by former Special Mobile Unit officer Joseph ‘Jovan’ Grech. Besides owning Signal 8, Grech is also listed as a consultant for Conflict International, a London-based private investigations firm.

In addition, Grech is the sole shareholder of a Malta-registered company named Kelis Rayel Company Ltd. The company operates El Doris Boutique Living, a boutique hotel in Marsaskala that is subject to a pending planning application.

Grech did not respond to our questions directly when contacted.

However, Signal 8’s managing director Julian Dimech – along with G4S’ CEO and Kerber Security’s Stefan Axisa – did respond via a joint statement from the newly formed Malta Private Security Association (MPSA).

Set up to “promote and safeguard its members’ interests by advocating pro-industry policies and legislation,” the MPSA’s stated goals are “to prevent the exploitation of employees” and “to foster an industry that values integrity, protects workers, and contributes to a healthy and ethical labour market.”

The strip club owner

A screenshot from Kerber Security’s website featuring a stylised photo of Ronald Axisa.

Kerber Security is a Maltese company owned by Ronald Axisa. Kerber claims just shy of 10% of the public procurement contracts under analysis, which amounts to €28 million since 2013.

Axisa also owns a strip club named Stiletto, located in Paceville. Stefan Axisa is his son, and was one of the individuals responding to our questions on behalf of the MPSA.

Despite the MPSA’s claim that its members wish to “contribute to a healthy and ethical labour market,” the track record of Kerber’s employees raises questions.

In October of last year, two unlicensed bouncers employed by Kerber – Ivan Marjanovic and Milos Stojkovic – were released on bail after pleading not guilty to grievously injuring a group of youths in Paceville.

Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech had ordered JobsPlus to investigate Kerber and the establishments where they were working to determine whether they were employed legally.

Questions sent to Jobsplus about the outcome of that investigation were redirected through the public service’s customer support page and remained unanswered at publication time.

In January 2024, another Kerber employee, Ryan Zammit, was among a group of bouncers who were accused of causing grievous harm to a Sudanese student in Paceville. Zammit was further accused of operating without a license.

In 2020, three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, a news report published by Lovin Malta linked Kerber Security to the government’s inhumane offshore detention centres.

The government had confirmed that the whole operation cost taxpayers around €1.7 million but did not confirm Kerber’s involvement until an FOI request was filed.

“A direct order was commissioned to Kerber Security to provide security services on the four vessels chartered to accommodate illegal immigrants between April and June 2020 during the time when Maltese ports were closed off due to COVID-19,” the home affairs ministry’s response stated.

“The security company was chosen because at the time of the operation it was offering services at the Marsa Initial Reception Centre, and could therefore provide a service in the shortest possible time,” it added.

In April, the constitutional court awarded €20,000 in non-pecuniary damages to nine asylum seekers who were detained in these offshore centres, declaring that the conditions the government detained them in were inhumane.

A comparison of the company’s annual accounts with the revenue they generated from public procurement shows a high degree of dependence on government contracts; particularly from 2020 – 2023.

Questions were sent to Kerber Security for clarification about their involvement in the Captain Morgan saga and the volume of public contracts they received. No responses were received from Kerber or the Office of the Prime Minister by publication time.

Executive Security: The ex-AFM official

With a total of 8% of the contracts tracked for this analysis, Executive Security was the only firm that threatened immediate legal action as a result of our queries.

“Your allegations are incorrect and are clearly intended to provide a prejudiced narrative. Under these circumstances, we warn you that if you persist in publishing untruthful facts about us, we will proceed against you for the damages you would cause us,” Executive’s owner, Stephen Ciangura, wrote in a brief response.

Further questions were sent to substantiate this website’s findings. Ciangura was invited to explain where he believes our reporting is incorrect.

His partner, Georgiana Lupu, is listed as the sole shareholder for Gold Guard Security. Lupu claimed that this website’s reporting was inaccurate.

Our analysis shows that Gold Guard was awarded a total of €7 million in public contracts since it was set up in 2015. Executive Security was set up in 2008.

In 2016, news reports confirmed that Ciangura – who served as a lance bombardier in the Armed Forces of Malta – was not formally given permission to obtain a security license by the AFM.

Ciangura’s profile in the press was elevated when he became Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s personal security guard – with the Labour Party publicly claiming they were paying for the extra security afforded to the former Nationalist MP turned Rwandan ambassador.

The other 11%

Given that it is virtually impossible to include further detail about every company we investigated without making this investigation too unwieldy to read, we summarised the rest of our more pertinent findings.

You may also find all of the data we referred to at the bottom of this article:

Questionable public procurement practices: as can be ascertained by our data further below, we tracked dozens of direct orders which went above the €10,000 limit and noted several variations across multiple tenders.
Grange Security: obtaining 3% of the total pot of public funding under analysis, Grange Security’s annual accounts also indicate a high degree of dependence on government funding.

OZO Group: earning a total of €8.3 million from contracts awarded to its subsidiaries, the Zammit Tabona-owned labour services company provided detailed answers to our queries about its operations.
Protection Services: owned by former AFM lance corporal Jason Pisani, this firm made a relatively small amount of money from public procurement when compared with its larger competitors: we tracked around €2 million in total.

When asked for a general comment about public contracts related to his company, Pisani deflected and told this website he could instead “give a detailed description and info about companies that earned hundreds of millions in that period.”

Pressed to comment further about his own slice of the pie, he refused to provide a comment for this joint investigation, accusing us of “attempting to involve (him) in a political inquiry.”

The data

G4S (tenders) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/22682911/

G4S (DOs) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/22682983/

Signal 8 (tenders) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21812317/

Signal 8 (DOs) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21812281/

Kerber (tenders) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/22492637/

Kerber (DOs) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/22492631/

Executive (tenders) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21812156/

Executive (DOs) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21812065/

Grange (tenders) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21812392/

Grange (DOs) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/21812344/

OZO (tenders) https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/22492612/