The Office of the Prime Minister is looking into the recruitment of two brothers engaged with the Wild Birds Regulation Unit due to a potential conflict with the public service management code.
Their recruitment in the birds unit that falls under the Animal Rights Parliamentary Secretariat led by Roderick Galdes was raised by The Sunday Times of Malta last week because the public service management code states that relatives should not be working within the same government unit.
The WBRU was set up two months after the Labour Party was voted into power on the promise that the government would “guarantee spring hunting”. Among other tasks, the unit justifies the derogations (exemptions) from the EU Birds Directive to allow spring hunting and autumn trapping, which the directive bans.
Joseph Lia and Richard Lia have a history with the hunting lobby, raising a potential conflict of interest.
Yet, the Animal Rights Secretariat continues to defend its recruitment practice, stating that Joseph Lia was recruited through an intra-public service call for applications. It did not address the recommendations made in the public service management code.
His brother, the secretariat said, has a Masters degree in conservation biology, specialising in avian species. This contradicts information given to this newspaper, which has asked the secretariat to provide copies of his qualifications. These were not immediately available, the secretariat said.
The secretariat meanwhile made no comment on the appointment of Albert Pace as advisor to the Parliamentary Secretary. Last week, this newspaper also exposed the fact that one of the first tasks Mr Pace took on was to advise on the revision of a law that decriminalised bird callers – the use of which he was found guilty of a few years earlier.
The Office of the Prime Minister has stood by this appointment, saying the offence was a minor one: “His unique knowledge of hunting matters and political experience qualifies him as a political advisor on hunting matters. Mr Pace has only one minor case and is known to be a moderating voice of reason within the hunting community”.
The Sunday Times of Malta also raised questions on the appointment of the head of the WBRU, Sergei Golovkin.
Such appointments made without a call for applications were raised in the Public Service Commission’s annual reports in 2011 and 2012, which said they were “unconstitutional”.
“The Commission felt there was no apparent justification why such positions should not be filled through a call for applications,” according to the PSC’s 2012 report.
Although the OPM confirmed there was no internal or external call for applications for this role, it justified his appointment because the unit needed to be set up quickly.
“The new structure had to be set up swiftly due to infringement procedures and stringent EU rules which Malta has to abide to, as well as the application of the derogation which was negotiated on EU accession,” a government spokesman said. The secretariat also defended his appointment saying the PSC reports did not “specifically” refer to Mr Golovkin.
“Secondment of employees from one entity to another is normal practice within the public service,” a spokesman said.
Yet, secondment of employees does not necessitate a new contract, as was the case with Mr Golovkin, according to government sources.