Refusing a leak

I was offered a leak the other day. I was assured it showed that the Tourism Minister's hand was close behind the back of the former marketing director of the Malta Tourism Authority when he was defenestrated by the new CEO, last week. Come on, take it - I was urged.

Leaks are in season. Don't you believe that particular timing. Local leaks are not in any pre-festivities season, to go away in three weeks' time, and return with all the bad will in the world once temporary Yuletide goodwill is thrown out, once over-indulgence wears off.

Leaks are a part of everyday life. Someone or other from within any grouping of three or more people, will offer a leak the moment s/he disagrees with, or is outshone by the others.

Political leaking is a more refined art. You do get leaks from those who are not in enthusiastic agreement with policy stances at the top, the bottom or the in-between. Those who make such leaks tend to be one of three basic types, though variants and mutations can also be identified. Those of the first type honestly profess moral conviction that they are doing the right thing. They leak to help the party save itself from itself.

The second oppose personalities, full stop. They leak to undermine them. They, too, do so with the moral conviction that to be rid of him, her, or both of those who are leaked against, would be for the good of the party.

Then there are leakers of a third kind. Morality only comes in here because the spelling of 'immorality' includes it. Such leakers are devious operators, usually not far from the heart of the affair.

They leak against their closest collaborators, seemingly against themselves. They project the perception that the leak came from someone not in total agreement, or in a little disagreement with, or bluntly opposed to the engine drivers, the speed of the engine, the direction it is taking, or whatever.

The leaks game is by no means confined to political parties, salons, clubs, groupings, cliques and what else have you. The local Curia used to leak like a sieve. In my earlier days in journalism a refined leaker took great delight in telling me how Archbishop Michael Gonzi had told off a bishop over a social proposal he made publicly before clearing it with him.

It is not so much that Malta is bursting with human moles, as if to compensate for the absence of a varied species in the domestic animal world. Leaking is part of Malta's organisation template, of whatever shape or shapelessness.

The leak offered to me related to the spin mischievously carried on Sunday by MaltaToday. The newspaper had a follow-up on The Times report regarding how the MTA marketing director had been shoved out, once again at the taxpayer's expense.

This newspaper's sister daily had detailed the 'how' of it. How the new CEO of the Malta Tourism Authority, still not familiar with all the nooks and crannies of the precincts, terminated the experienced marketing director's definite contract, paying him the full amount the official would have received up to its end with a nonchalance unbecoming an experienced financial director.

But then, such nonchalance had been shown earlier on a larger scale by the Tourism Minister. The political administrator of the people's money had insisted there was nothing wrong in using public money to grant the previous chairman/CEO the pay and fringe benefits due up to the end of his particular contract, though he had resigned well before its end, and was therefore legally bound to pay the authority, and not be handsomely paid by it.

If a minister of the Republic sees nothing wrong in paying someone for not doing anything at all, why should the new CEO feel inhibited from also wasting public funds as the start of what he would term a "re-engineering exercise"? (The Times, Business, November 30)

What the CEO did to the former marketing director, and how he did it, was quickly revealed. The 'why' of it remained a mystery. The MTA chairman did not shed any light on it. He was known to be saying that he had done his best to stop what was about to happen, but it was beyond his control. The implication was that the new CEO had not acted according to the wish, or with the agreement of the equally new chairman.

The authority's board was not consulted. Who, then, gave the tourism-inexperienced CEO the OK to KO a marketing director spoken of highly by the trade? Nobody was saying. But somebody - not improbably, the 'who' himself - did offer MaltaToday his version of 'why'.

According to the newspaper, "MTA sources told MaltaToday that 27 months after the (marketing director's) appointment, the expected improvement in tourism performance had not materialised, leaving the authority no room for manoeuvre but to act."

My intended informer contacted me after he read my "Talking Point" on the issue ("Putting on the style", The Times, November 28). The person told me that the leak to MaltaToday could not have come from the MTA chief executive - he would have been man enough not to remain anonymous. Or from the chairman - he is somewhat anodyne, but, surely, more of a man than that. The fingerpost pointed to the Ministry, my informer said, suggesting the spin came from the very top.

I pooh-poohed the very idea, telling the informer that no self-respecting minister would stoop to such a cowardly low of putting out that type of spin and simultaneously thanking the terminated marketing director, and even faintly praising him (The Sunday Times, November 26)

Why don't you ask MaltaToday, then, said my informer, very sure of himself. I did not ask for the simple reason that, as a practitioner myself, I know that journalists do not reveal their sources, not even to a court of law. I opted to retain my hope that ministerial integrity is stronger than ministerial incapability. I refused the leak.

That is not to say, however, that the leak in Sunday's MaltaToday attributed to MTA sources should not be investigated. It ought to be investigated by the Malta Tourism Authority itself. It may be that the chairman has not found the time to do that. He is still embroiled in investigating who had leaked his draft letter to the branding expert who had not quite delivered as expected with his first effort to brand Malta.

That little matter aside, he has to focus on the purpose for which he was appointed, and try to breathe new life in the MTA. That limping body is in desperate need of that. The chairman, counterpointed by the authority's CEO, gave fresh evidence of the MTA's very bad situation, when interviewed by Vanessa Macdonald for Thursday's Times (Business).

The chairman outlined the veritable mess he had inherited, as he had done when he was appointed. Much of the blame rests squarely on the failed tandem of the unflustered and unsinkable tourism minister, and his former appointee as chairman/CEO. No cynical effort to spin blame onto the marketing director, or for that matter any other MTA official, can cover up that fact.

The present chairman, like the tourism consultative group, highlighted the core problem faced by the tourism industry - carrying capacity. One might safely presume that the former marketing director did not create, or fail to solve, that problem. The minister would have tried to so something about it, but could not.

The tourism minister could - and should - have seen to it that MTA's funds were used wisely. The allocation of US$1 million to an advertising campaign on CNN television was thrown out of court by the new chairman the moment he was appointed. The authority tried to cancel the campaign. CNN would not have it. It permitted it to be cut by a fifth. The balance is a waste of money, in the context of Malta's needs at this stage. That was bluntly confirmed by the chairman to Ms Macdonald.

He also effectively told her that, having restructured its operations over the past two years, the MTA is going to have to restructure all over again. Much of the former restructuring was wrong. It certainly did not result in the expected improvement in the tourism performance materialising. The Tourism Minister, not versed in management but determined to try to micro-manage, presided over it.

The new MTA team is having to change so many things that were decided way on high that a red herring is the obvious sorry intent of the anonymous sources spinning to MaltaToday, tried to blame the ongoing decline in tourism on the former marketing director.

The last three tourism years have been a mixture of incompetent leadership by the minister, and lack of political weight to get things moving within the government. The prime minister signalled that he would shore that up with an inter-ministerial committee presided over by him. It has not worked. Ironically, it was the MTA that was sent to the bottom of the pit, without any political buck stopping where political responsibility lay, whatever the unease in the sector.

The CEO confirmed to The Times that the industry does not feel comfortable with the authority. "Hopefully," he said, "in the not too distant future, the stakeholders will feel comfortable with the authority, and work towards the same vision."

It is not easy to feel comfortable with failure. The turnaround will not come about because of the presence or departure of any one person, or a whole team for that matter. Even if the prime minister does the incumbent minister the kindness of saving him further embarrassment, and removing him, a new minister will have a very steep mountain to climb.

He would do it best by adopting a completely different management style to the failed one of the present gentleman. A new minister would find it easy enough not to slip into such absurdities as offering a quick analysis of the impact of a low-cost airline (Ryanair), after just one week in local business. He might find it harder, but more profitable, to stay out of the MTA's daily shower, be only involved in approving and monitoring policy, and let it get on with its job.

The direct or indirect ministerial interference that has been going on has not helped the authority. Its CEO told The Times that part of the new team's strategy was to make the authority more "autonomous" of the ministry. "Stakeholders tended to be a bit wary of the authority because they did perceive it as being autonomous."

The language is very careful. The substance has been blindingly clear for a very long time: with the MTA trained to walk in the park on its political master's leash, the stakeholders have become very uncomfortable. "The ministry is there to set government policy, but it is up to the authority to decide how to achieve those aims," the CEO said. "As long as we deliver, there should be no reason for the ministry to step in."

A new minister might go along with that. The present minister is too set in his ways. I somehow doubt, though, that he will assist the authority by taking it on himself to investigate who gave MaltaToday a cock and bull story about why the MTA marketing director was shoved out of the window. Will the prime minister?