Alfred Sant writes:

I learnt about Frederick Amato Gauci’s death with great sadness.

He will be remembered as a leading member of a very small group of outstanding civil servants who, in the aftermath of World War II through to Malta’s Independence and in later years, modernised the island’s public administrative system. His career testifies to the resilience and seriousness of purpose with which Maltese managers faced the deep structural changes that Malta experienced as it became a sovereign state.

During the 1950s, Amato Gauci was in charge of the fledgling social services schemes that were then being pioneered. During the 1960s, he set up from scratch Malta’s diplomatic service. On leaving government, he spent years directing one of the new industrial companies that came to Malta in the decade following Independence. He returned briefly in 1977 to government service as an adviser on the State enterprises then set up as part of an accelerated industrialisation drive.

However, I treasure his memory for the deeply human approach he adopted towards man management, even if it was well camouflaged under an outwardly detached style.

I first met him in the late 1960s, when he chaired the board examining recruits to the diplomatic service, then considered quite an ordeal. When it was over, he called me to his office and did not brush away my suggestion that I could not join the service forthwith since I still needed to finish a university course. He said this could be managed and laid out how it would be done without my losing “seniority”, a concept I had never heard of but which was then still important in civil service careers.

Months later, in Paris, where I was sent to do foreign service studies, he made sure that I got invited to a function at the Quai d’Orsay in honour of then prime minister George Borg Olivier, who was on an official visit to France, and took me to the prime minister’s hotel suite to introduce me.

With my studies over, I still remember the interview at which he told me, with a wry smile, that the time for enjoyment was over and I would be posted to Brussels, then considered a hardship post by Maltese diplomats.

All these are minor incidents one could claim. But they illuminate the wisdom and kindness that are the most effective assets of top administrators. Amato Gauci was well endowed with wisdom and kindness.

I met him years later, when he was advising on Maltese State enterprises while I was doing a doctoral thesis on them. Again, I could not but admire the rigour with which he tried to bring some order to the topsy-turvy environment in which those enterprises operated. It was an impossible task.

In later years, he maintained a steadfast commitment to the highest standards of administrative practice and behaviour. He has left an impeccable record behind him from which many can still learn a lot.

I extend my deepest condolences to his family.