Borg Olivier e-mail sent to ministry official 'by mistake'

The Home Affairs Ministry official who was on the recipient list of the infamous e-mail sent by Nationalist general secretary Paul Borg Olivier, denied having ever been part of PN's strategy meetings and said the message was directed to him by mistake.

He told his superiors when questioned about the e-mail, which refers to a strategy meeting at the PN headquarters, that he only found out that his name was being connected to this controversy from the media and that he had deleted the message as soon as he received it taking it as an "obvious misdirected mail".

Saviour Azzopardi, an assistant director in the Home Affairs Ministry who handles requests for presidential pardons, becomes the second mistaken recipient on the list of people who received the now controversial message since the e-mail became public knowledge after Dr Borg Olivier mistakenly copied in his direct political rival, Jason Micallef, instead of Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi.

His name was first flagged publicly by Labour general secretary Jason Micallef on the Friday night talk show Xarabank.

Mr Micallef had grilled Dr Borg Olivier about the fact that he had sent the e-mail to Mr Azzopardi, pointing out that not only was the man a civil servant but he also had the sensitive task of drawing up the government's recommendations on Presidential pardons.

Like Mr Azzopardi, Dr Borg Olivier said he was not meant to be on the recipient list, to which Mr Micallef replied: "And we're supposed to believe that?"

When asked about the matter by his boss, Permanent Secretary Mario Debattista, Mr Azzopardi insisted that he had never attended any such strategic meeting at the PN headquarters or anywhere else.

The e-mail referred to a meeting at the PN headquarters in which a data sharing strategy was put in place and was sent out to Cabinet and ministerial aides.

The most contentious line says: "... every customer care office is being asked to hand all the data on a template. The data (excel) should include 1) personal data of persons who moved a complaint to the customer care of the ministry/parliamentary secretariat in the past eight months 2) type of request 3) action and 4) results (pending)."

Labour's charge has been that this type of information gathering runs against data protection laws and constitutes spying on complainers - an accusation fiercely refuted by the Nationalist Party.

But Mr Micallef had gone a step further, claiming that some people attending the meeting and on the e-mail's recipient list are public servants meddling in party strategy.

When contacted about this point, the Principle Permanent Secretary, Godwin Grima said that all the people involved besides Cabinet members appeared to be political appointees with the exception of Mr Azzopardi, and added that he would look into the involvement of the latter.

When asked for the outcome of this probe late last week, Dr Grima said: "I am informed that he (the Permanent Secretary at the Home Affairs Ministry) spoke at length with Mr Saviour Azzopardi and that Mr Azzopardi stated in no uncertain terms that he never attended any meeting in regard to this matter, or any other for that matter, at the PN's HQ or elsewhere.

"Finally he said that he got to know of the fact that his name was being bandied about on Xarabank from the local papers and only saw the programme in its repeat version."

Labour's claims about data protection breaches have been forwarded to the Data Protection Commissioner, who still has to be officially appointed even though a person has been selected.

Dr Borg Olivier has staunchly defended himself, stressing there is nothing illegal in the system his party was trying to put in place and has even filed his own complaint with the Commissioner, asking him to investigate Labour's data-gathering practices.