The “horrendous” manner in which centres were run when two migrants died between 2011 and 2012 is a thing of the past, the man now responsible for the facilities insists.

Col Mario Schembri told Times of Malta he had received complaints about the personnel working in either of the island’s two detention centres and operations were running smoothly.

He was contacted for his comments on what his predecessor, Brian Gatt, had told an inquiry into the deaths of a Malian and Nigerian migrant.

The inquiry was ordered in 2012 but the findings were never published. A request by Times of Malta for access to the findings earlier this year remained unanswered. The report was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday when the House was debating the shooting incident involving former home affairs minister Manuel Mallia’s driver last month.

Col Gatt told the inquiry that 70 per cent of those assigned to the detention services in 2011 were the army’s unwanted soldiers. The “worst people in the army”, he said, were being seconded to detention centres in an unofficial form of punishment.

Col Schembri, however, pointed out that none of the personnel under his command had any grievances with their posting.

Col Gatt reported to the inquiry that he had been assigned a soldier who had been arraigned for shooting at a yacht. He said he had complained with his superiors but his pleas fell on deaf ears. “Are you guys in your right senses,” he had exclaimed.

A sergeant was found lurking in the woman’s quarters and had on at least one occasion taken a female migrant back to his office where condoms were found and a soldier had a usury habit.

Col Gatt had told the inquiry that if the detention services were to be improved, the bulk of the personnel would have to be changed.

Asked about this, Col Schembri insisted that none of the people indicated by his predecessor were still involved in detention services. In fact, he had a smaller staff complement than the previous detention head used to have.

Col Gatt had also recalled that when nine immigrants had escaped and he confronted the bombardier responsible demanding why procedure was not followed, the officer produced the rule book and replied: “Here are the regulations but I don’t follow them”.

The bombardier had failed to lock three of four doors, one of his main responsibilities, according to Col Gatt.