The report that the Office of the President offered some of its Kitchen Garden employees work contracts that contained precarious work conditions was a cause of embarrassment and irritation to the President, a standard-bearer in the campaign against precarious work.

President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca admitted that the contentious contracts were “one big legal mess” because they conflated different forms of employment. She, however, rejected the argument that they were precarious jobs and said that the controversial contracts were presented to only four of a staff complement of 26 and were never signed or implemented.

The number of employees involved is inconsequential for the fact remains that someone who enjoys the President’s trust offered those work conditions to four Palace employees knowing full well how strongly Ms Coleiro Preca felt about precarious work and how often she had spoken out against them. Industrial relations experts described the contract conditions offered as being the worst they had seen.

So much was the President’s indignation at what happened under her watch that she conceded that while she could not be expected to scrutinise each document that left her office, she “might need to do so in the future”. No one doubts her genuine disapproval of what happened at her office and it is admirable that she assumed personal responsibility and promised to deal with the matter internally.

She went on to say that upon taking over as President, she had found negligence and gross mismanagement at the Kitchen Garden, claiming that only one employee had a contract and the remainder were not even registered with the Employment and Training Corporation. The President added that those irregularities and precarious working conditions had since been rectified.

But writing in this newspaper, the treasurer of the Community Chest Fund during President George Abela’s tenure, denied Ms Coleiro Preca’s claims and said that all Kitchen Garden staff had a contract of service. The former treasurer also denied any irregularities or precarious work. His letter was in turn countered by another, this time by the current Community Chest Fund treasurer. Needless to say, these public squabbles involving such a high-profile charity institution do not do the Presidency or the fund any good.

The President also accused the journalist who penned the report in this newspaper of trying to discredit the 40 years of work she had done to help workers.

But a journalist who exposes what is wrong or what is about to be done wrong at the President’s Kitchen Garden is not only doing his duty but also preventing worker exploitation. This is something the President should find commendable – as should the General Workers’ Union, but instead its newspaper called on the Times of Malta to be prosecuted for printing such a story. Hypocrisy and opportunism knows no bounds.

The President even cautioned against ‘attacks’ on her office as, she said, while incumbents changed, the Presidency remained the only uniting force in the country. While there is more than just the Presidency that unites the country, it would also be good if successive presidents did not criticise their predecessors as that is not conducive to unity or continuity.

Exposing abuse or possible abuse, wherever they occur, is a responsibility of a free press in a democratic country and it would have been far better for the President, instead of blaming the messenger, to see the Kitchen Garden case as an opportunity to step up her well-voiced campaign against precarious work.