TV presenter John Bundy testified yesterday that Home Affairs Ministry chief of staff Silvio Scerri ordered the termination of Norman Vella’s employment at PBS by calling the station’s CEO, Anton Attard.
Mr Bundy appeared before the Employment Commission that is hearing a case instituted by former TVHemm presenter Mr Vella against Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Principal Permanent Secretary, Mario Cutajar. He is claiming political discrimination in the way he was redeployed from PBS to the Immigration Department.
Mr Bundy said he happened to be at the ministry when he heard Mr Scerri issue the order for Mr Vella to be returned to his job at the Immigration Department.
He said Mr Scerri was speaking to “a certain Anton”. When asked by Mr Vella’s lawyer, Andrew Borg Cardona, to say who this “Anton” was, he said it was Mr Attard.
“I met Norman Vella at the airport and told him not to continue blaming the Prime Minister or any other politicians because it was Silvio Scerri who took the decision and I heard him [issue the order] with my own ears because I happened to be there at the time,” he said.
Mr Bundy added that although they worked in the same field he had never met Mr Vella before that occasion at the airport and he had only seen him on TV.
Asked whether he was friends with Mr Scerri, Mr Bundy said they had been friends but were no longer on speaking terms.
Journalist Norma Saliba also testified, saying she had been seconded to PBS from the Malta-EU Steering Action Committee. PBS head of news, Reno Bugeja, called her to ask whether she would be interested in returning to the station. She said she did not know whether there had been a call for applications.
She had started her journalistic career at Labour’s One TV but then left to join PBS. She later had the opportunity to work within the Prime Minister’s Office, before moving to Meusac, where she spent two years before being seconded again to the national television station.
PBS chairman Tonio Portughese said he had never been consulted on the termination of Mr Vella’s deployment adding that the issue was brought up during a board meeting.