The text message sent by Mr Mangion to the President more than a year after he was appointed to the board of the MCCF. He was never invited to attend a meeting.

Alfred Mangion has spent the last three and a half years wondering if he is actually a member of the Malta Community Chest Fund board.

He still does not have an answer but it turns out that another Alfred Mangion is an MCCF board member and has attended regularly over the past years, according to sources close to the fund. He is the chairman and owner of the import company AM Mangion.

The controversy that arose over the MCCF’s offer to pay for the master’s degree course of a Presidential aide could soon address the first Mr Mangion’s question.

He was contacted four years ago by Darleen Zerafa, the aide at the centre of the story, who called him to the Palace for a meeting at a time when he worked at the Office of the Prime Minister before he retired. She informed him that he had been appointed to ­­the board.

A few days earlier, the OPM’s Mr Mangion, who knew George Abela personally before the latter was made President, had sent him a letter congratulating him on his appointment.

At the meeting with Ms Zerafa, he accepted the appointment immediately. She asked if he needed to clear the matter with the OPM and he said he would inform them.

A week later he attended a reception in Valletta, marking Malta’s EU accession, and there he met the President and thanked him personally. However, more than a year later he had still not attended a board meeting so he sent a text message to the President enquiring about the matter.

“Mr President, 15 months ago (I) gladly accepted appt on MCCF. Website confirms this & also that I am member of the Tenders Sub-Comm. Wish 2 meet you as was NEVER asked to attend any mtgs. Sincerely Alfred Mangion”.

According to Mr Mangion, a few hours later the President himself called and assured him that his contribution was needed and that he would be contacted by his office.

That phone call never came, however.

The mix-up emerged as Times of Malta contacted Mr Mangion for a reaction to the revelation that the MCCF had offered to pay for Ms Zerafa’s distance learning degree course from Italy.

Mr Mangion excluded that it could be a case of mistaken identity because he knew the President personally when he worked as human resource manager at the Malta International Airport and Dr Abela was the General Workers’ Union lawyer.

Questions sent to the President’s Office remained unanswered at the time of writing, while attempts to contact Mr Mangion, the businessman, were unsuccessful.