Labour media man does 'a PBO'

Labour's communications coordinator Kurt Farrugia yesterday apologised for a mini-blunder he compared to that of the Nationalist Party's general secretary, Paul Borg Olivier, who in 2008 sent an e-mail to his Labour counterpart Jason Micallef instead of Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi.

An e-mail addressed to Labour's adviser Marisa Micallef was sent to all the media.

Entitled Feedback Needed, the message asked Ms Micallef to look into a paragraph from the government's plans regarding housing to see which targets had been reached.

"It is the leader's will to see how far the government has managed to achieve its targets," the e-mail said, before asking Ms Micallef to look at the section that she "takes care of".

It noted this was part of an exercise to draw up a report for the "consumption" of the parliamentary group and the party.

Within minutes, Mr Farrugia sent another e-mail apologising for any inconvenience caused, adding that the internal exercise was intended to "hold the government accountable for its (in)action".

In the apology, he also offered to the journalists on the mailing list any information the party was collecting.

However, the e-mail unwittingly highlighted a possible promotion for Ms Micallef, who, although officially employed as a communications adviser, seems now to have been given responsibilities related to housing.

When contacted and asked whether the former housing authority chairman was being groomed as a spokesman for the area, possibly with a view of her contesting a general election, Mr Farrugia answered: "Absolutely not".

"She is, like me, just a functionary," he said, adding that the same e-mail had been sent to Labour's spokesman Roderick Galdes.

"We simply use everyone's abilities," Mr Farrugia said.