Among the multitude of empty promises that won Joseph Muscat a landslide electoral victory in 2013, there was the promisethat whoever was againstLabour could still work with Labour. But once elected to government he quickly forgot this promise and lost no time to show his true colours. It got to the point where members appointed on the University Council by the previous prime minister were not allowed to carry on with their work until Muscat nominated his 15 councillors to replace them on June 21, 2013. In fact, they were immediately forced to resign with the result that the work of the council was stalled for over three months.

Muscat also went back on his promises of adopting zero-tolerance to corruption and transparency. Since the Labour Party took office, Malta has been rocked by a string of corruption scandals, a number of them even originating from Muscat’s own office in Castille.

Immense damage to the country’s reputation has been caused by Muscat’s obstinacy to support blindly and at all costs his close allies, Minister Without Portfolio Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri, who were discovered to have opened secret offshore companies in Panama shortly after the Labour takeover. This behaviour on the part of Muscat gave a hefty push to the prevailing philosophy that persons who have helped Labour rise to power enjoy a privileged position over other Maltese citizens.

Under the Muscat administration political discrimination in the employment sector has reached an unprecedented level. The Labour government has boosted the ‘person of trust’ employment system in the public sector with the number of individuals on such employment reaching 542 by the end of last year.

This system permits the granting of jobs with the government to individuals by reason of their political opinion, without any need to undertake a competitive exercise under the guidance of the Public Service Commission as required bythe Constitution.

As a consequence, qualified and capable persons are being unjustly precluded from obtaining employment in public offices, while those already occupying a public office are denied merited promotions.

A glaring obscene example of the purely partisan basis on which appointments are given in the public sector concerns an 18-year-old nephew of the chief of staff of the current Labour Party deputy leader, Chris Cardona, who was promoted from a clerk to the position of director.

Cardona defended this promotion that, according to him, followed a process of applications and a selective interview carried out by the Malta Investment Management Company Limited (Mimcol).

Political appointees in the high echelons of government departments and public entities are further given a free hand to perform private work, despite the fact that this breaches the Public Administration Act and runs counter to the Bill dealing with standards inpublic life.

A clear example concerns ex Labour Party CEO James Piscopo who, after his party swept to power in 2013, was appointed executive chairman of Transport Malta with a yearly salary of €85,000. Yet, with the full blessing of his minister he set up a personal holding company to conduct private consultancy work, which he registered on the same address of a property rented by Transport Malta.

Another political appointment given soon after the Labour takeover was to Josianne Cutajar, who was placed as CEO at St Vincent de Paul Residence.

She was given a package consisting of a yearly salary of €68,822 plus 10 per cent maximum performance bonus, a fully expensed new Ford Focus car and paid mobile and fixed phone service.

The quality of democratic life in Malta is deteriorating on a daily basis as political discrimination accentuates

At the same time, Cutajar was given full blessing by permanent secretary Mark Musu’ to continue running her private medical clinic and to work as a private general practitioner despite the fact that this created a clear conflict of interest.

Her broad discretionary powers over the healthcare institution in question gave rise to a situation where her private patients could possibly be put in an advantageous position with regard to the provision of services by the institut-ion concerned.

Her private practice is therefore considered to possibly interfere directly with the performance of her official duties. Furthermore, a person was employed from outside the public sector on a position of trust basis to act as her secretary, for which the person in question receives a yearly salary of €22,000 and car allowance of €1,864 together with paid mobile phone service.

Politically appointed CEOs in the public sector also appear to be immune to disciplinary action and they remain unchecked by their permanent secretaries who have the responsibility of carrying out supervision over them.

A classical example is that of CEO Philip Rizzo who made sexist comments on the social media about Olivia Farrugia, a female employee answerable to him.

These comments erupted public outrage and were condemned by both Civil Liberties Minister Helena Dalli and the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality (NCPE) that is trusted with the responsibility of protecting disadvantaged groups from harassment.

Had Rizzo been a common citizen or an ordinary employee he would have been prosecuted for abusing the power conferred upon him in his official capacity by sexually harassing a subordinate worker. This amounts to a criminal offence in terms of article 9 of the Equality for Men and Women Act (chapter 456) and is also prohibited in terms of article 29 (2) of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act (chapter 452) and in the Legal Notice 181/2008, Access to Goods and Services and their Supply (Equal Treatment) Regulations, which delineates the illegality of sexual harassment.

However, being the privileged person he is, Rizzo was immediately assured that he would be retained in the job and so he had practically nothing to worry about.

More recently, we have witnessed public comments on the social media of an intimidating nature on the basis of political belief that were made by the politically appointed CEO of the Social Welfare Foundation, Alfred Grixti, a long time activist and former official of the Labour Party.

These comments have naturally raised serious concerns about the integrity of the agency in question.

Similarly, Ronnie Pellegrini, the chief of staff of the Civil Liberties Minister, in his reaction to a report that Labourite workers are being preferred at the workplace, commented on the social media that that is the way it should be.

The Constitution of Malta prohibits discrimination on the basis of a range of grounds that include political opinion.

It rests on the fundamental pillarsof democracy and respect of fundamental human rights which places the nationin the category of civilised onesas opposed nations under an arbit-rary government.

However, in practice the quality ofdemocratic life in Malta is deteriorating on a daily basis as political discrimination accentuates.

Denis Tanti is a former assistant director (industrial and employment relations) in the Ministry for Health.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.