Military officers sitting on the board overseeing promotions within the armed forces were replaced by two Home Affairs Ministry officials, a Nationalist Party spokesman said yesterday.
Shadow home affairs minister Jason Azzopardi told Times of Malta that the new board members were former One News reporter Ramona Attard, now deputy chief of staff at the Home Affairs Ministry, and Clint Cutajar, a customer care officer within the secretariat of the same ministry.
They replaced the deputy commander of the Armed Forces of Malta and the colonel in charge of human resources.
The other members of the board, presided over by the Principal Permanent Secretary, are the Director of Defence and the AFM commander.
Speaking for the ministry, Ms Attard defended the changes, saying the board’s composition included two people nominated by the ministry. She did not point out that she was one of them.
Raises questions over its military credentials
Dr Azzopardi lambasted the Government for the changes, which, he said, were made on May 20, adding that the sole intention was “for the Labour Party to take over the army”.
He said that even though the ministry had the right to nominate two of the five board members, it would be logical to appoint people with a military background.
“Having two members of the ministry’s secretariat on the board raises serious questions on the military credentials of the board tasked with deciding on top army posts” he said.
It was announced on Friday that majors Jeffrey Curmi, Mark Mallia, Pierre Vassallo and Mark Said were promoted to lieutenant colonels.
Lt Col Vassallo was promoted even though he had failed a security clearance in 2006.
According to Ms Attard, the criteria had been too restrictive and were amended by the new Administration to open the selection process to all majors.
One of the changes was that majors only needed one year experience in that rank rather than two.
Dr Azzopardi stressed that under PN governments no secretariat members were ever allowed to sit on selection boards.