Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi on Wednesday told Parliament that the Public Administration Bill would offer a more efficient public service to serve the needs of the people in today's world, even if more work needed to be done in committee stage to sift and take on board what the opposition had commented upon and suggested.

Winding up the debate, Dr Gonzi said this time round, the debate in second reading was more mature than during the previous legislature as everyone had acknowledged the importance of this Bill.

The radical modernisation of the public service was necessary. This Bill proposed more productivity, efficiency and quality of service.

Turning to opposition comments, Dr Gonzi noted that certain suggestions presented legal problems, some even constitutional, like having the Public Service Commission subject to the courts, even if this was worth considering.

He announced that he had already had consultation with the Ombudsman to see how other entities, like the Mepa auditor and the Commissioner for Children, could come under his wing and be officials of Parliament, albeit indirectly.

The Bill was the result of a lengthy consultation process. And one of its positive aspects was the Merit Protection Commission, which would be the watchdog on public appointments, and eventually able to verify whether the procedure adopted was fair. He said he could not understand why the opposition had criticised this innovation.

He was also surprised to hear other suggestions, not directly related, like why collective agreements were not part of the Bill. These were agreements between the government and the unions to regulate working conditions. The government had indeed negotiated a better package for its workers than the minimum set up by the Employment and Industrial Relations Act.

This Bill proposed to extend the whistle-blower protection, provided by the Employment and Industrial Relations Act to private sector workers to those within the public sector. This, however, was not enough and the government hoped to put forward the Whistle-Blowers Act as soon as possible.

Earlier, Carmelo Abela (MLP) said there was a gaping chasm between the words of the Bill and the experience of 20 years of Nationalist administration. Especially in the months before the March 8 general election the government had extensively exploited the civil service for the benefit of the PN. It had done so even with institutions that had been set up only with the acquiescence of the opposition.

One particular failing of the government had been to implement certain findings of the Commission Against Injustices, even after courts had confirmed the commission's findings. There had also been three cases in which the commission had found proof of corruption, and about which nothing had been done. Another case was the riding roughshod over the neighbourhood's objections to the Sant'Antnin waste recycling plant at Marsascala.

Mr Abela said it was pertinent to ask where the Public Service Commission was going. Its responsibilities included the overseeing of discipline in government employment, but discipline had now become part of each respective ministry's remit. There should be a serious discussion of the PSCs changing role in the present circumstances, but words would never be enough. They should be accompanied by concrete improvement, especially in customer care.

Even parliamentary work was an extension of public service. Debates in the House should be more meaningful, and MPs should be allowed to work more professionally with the right facilities.

Concluding, Mr Abela said bureaucracy should be curtailed.

Nationalist MP Ċensu Galea said all Public Service employees had a responsibility to the people. This should go beyond any political bias. Most of the public sector employees worked well and consistently but one could not deny that there were others who dragged their feet.

Mentioning cases of corruption, he said it was important that MPs did not use Parliament to make false allegations because the House provided them with protection.

The performance of an efficient public sector, which Malta deserved, did not depend on heads of departments and permanent secretaries, but on the people doing the various jobs in the different departments.

Opposition leader Charles Mangion said the annual cost of personal emoluments in the public service now amounted to some €460 million. Did the government still believe that merit should be thrown out of the window so that a politician could have only like-minded staff around him? Maybe this was one reason why the targeted level of public service had never been reached.

There were several cases of civil servants from whom a lot more was expected; the fact that it was not forthcoming meant a dearth of efficiency. But this did not mean that there were not a majority of committed civil servants who did their best to do a good job.

Direction should come from the top. On the question of fuel usage, for example, the Malta Resources Authority had shown no concrete initiatives for progress towards less reliance on fossil fuels. There was not even a plan regarding potential investors in renewable energy sources and how they could be encouraged.

If onshore wind farms were really problematic because of the space they would take up, offshore windfarms presented the problems of cost. This was all the more reason why more efforts should go into the introduction of solar energy.

Dr Mangion said that over the past three years funds from the EU had been gradually reduced, for the simple reason that the necessary project plans had not been laid in time, or had not been laid at all. Over the first five months of this year the government had managed to get only €10 million in grants.

On accountability, Dr Mangion said public agencies were being subjected to scrutiny of their use of public funds, but there was no promise of any serious changes to the scope of the scrutiny of their operations by the Auditor General.

The Bill also dwelt on meritocracy. Were there not any cases of individuals having been sidelined or enticed to resign because their political views differed from those of the party in power? Everyone should be given equal opportunity to occupy important posts, so long as they had the right qualifications and above all the merit to occupy such posts.

On Tuesday, Labour MP George Vella said it was the opposition's right to reflect on the past leadership, which he described as "rotten". It was the opposition's duty to see how the taxpayers' money was being spent. In the past, the PN administration had squandered people's money. Inefficiency and discrimination were the order of the day.

Dr Vella referred to the case of the Voice of the Mediterranean and said it was inconceivable to cast a shadow on the integrity of the Auditor General because he was pointing out that money was not judiciously spent. He asked whether this Bill would leave things the same way.

It was impossible to have good governance if one continued to impose on the civil service.

Dr Vella pointed out that the majority of contracts, especially on street and road construction, experienced overruns of funding and time frames but nobody shouldered responsibility. The same had happened on the Manwel Dimech bridge and Mater Dei Hospital projects. When a train in Kent had derailed, the British minister for transport had resigned. In Malta, nothing of the sort happened.

People had been arraigned in court over the Mistra disco application but the minister responsible remained in office as if nothing had happened. Surely, this was not good governance.

Dr Vella asked whether the Freedom of Information Act was going to give the people access to see why a senior minister in the last legislature was forced to resign and had now been rehabilitated and reappointed to the Cabinet.

How could one have a Freedom of Information Act when it was politically decided not to publish the Mepa auditor's report on the Sant'Antnin waste recycling plant? The people were shocked at such arrogance.

The opposition did not have confidence in whoever was going to be guardian of this piece of legislation. The government had showed crass political dishonesty during the last electoral campaign in promising anything and everything in order to hang on to power. Hunters, transport operators and dockyard workers, among many others, knew this only too well. Play on words was not good governance.

He welcomed the fact that the Bill would be introducing the whistle-blowing concept. But even here, there was not enough protection for whistle-blowers. During the last administration the government had not taken disciplinary action against ministers and parliamentary secretaries in whose offices corruption had taken place. The minister would not have been involved in this, but he was responsible to oversee what was going on and prevent such antics.

For a more efficient public administration, ministers had to be involved in what was happening in their ministries. This was what happened in the private sector.

The Prime Minister, Dr Vella said, had to shoulder the political responsibility for Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando's Mistra disco case. He could not shed such responsibility because the solution was not legal but political.

The chief permanent secretary, provided for under the Bill, could not be appointed by the Prime Minister.

Concluding, Dr Vella said Parliament's code of ethics was ridiculous: it was the Prime Minister who had to take disciplinary action against members of his own government. This had to be changed and he suggested the setting up of a committee, on the lines of the UK's Committee on Standards of Public Life, to examine current concerns about standards of conduct by holders of public office, their families and friends, and make such recommendations as might be necessary.

Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi said it had always been Nationalist administrations that made improvements in sectors such as public administration.

Such achievements included e-government, the creation of a more family-friendly work environment, bureaucracy reduction and expenditure control.

The government was proud to have presented Bills to improve democracy. Indeed, it had made the public service more transparent, accountable and flexible, having employees who were there to serve the people.

The Bill would provide the public sector with a new framework to function in, complete with a code of ethics binding on all public sector employees. At the same time it was giving them empowerment and responsibility.

Dr Azzopardi said that the government would protect genuine whistle-blowers through the Public Service Commission. No one would be victimised for lodging a report with the commission or authority.

He said this would be the first public sector Bill to be approved by Parliament. There had never been a law regulating the whole public sector or the whole civil service. This was but a link in a network of initiatives being taken to improve the service given to the people, even if there were departments which had quality service charters.

Concluding, Dr Azzopardi said the Bill was proposing that the country's public administration would be based on stronger foundations.

On Monday, Nationalist MP Frederick Azzopardi said that it was important that the public service be equipped to serve the various sectors of society.

No government could serve its citizens well without an efficient public service.

Malta was going through a period of challenges and the government aimed to increase transparency, decrease public expenditure and invest in productivity.

Indications showed that 25 per cent of public service regulations no longer applied, and to increase efficiency everyone must be accountable.

Officials who reported a breach of ethics would be protected by the commission.

The Bill fulfilled the government's vision to meet people's needs.

Joseph Falzon (PN) said the success of any government depended on the public administration. The government, he said, had always strengthened the concept of public administration on two principles: Creating structures which answered to Parliament to ensure transparency, and the concept of privatisation, necessary to have an efficient public administration. Privatisation brought about new investments and increased efficiency, innovation and competition.

Mr Falzon said that it was good to have a free health service for everyone, but the health sector would have to be privatised at some time in the future.

Members of Parliament had to exercise more responsibility in investing, rather than spending, taxes paid by the people. At the end of the day the government was the people.

This Bill was important because its main challenge was in the context of the challenges the country was facing for Vision 2015. If Malta and Gozo succeeded to overcome these challenges everybody would benefit.

The government did not want to compete with the private sector, but wanted to see that its resources were being dedicated to improve public administration. The private sector should be allowed to excel because this benefited the consumer as evidenced by the telecommunications sector, which had registered great improvements from the days of monopoly to liberalisation.

The Bill was unanimously given a second reading. The House stands adjourned for September 29.

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