The country may never know how Sai Mizzi really performed when she was an envoy to China on a €13,000-a-month package.
After months of resisting this newspaper’s attempts to see the documentation related to her performance, Malta Enterprise, the government agency that employed her, has admitted it does not have any.
The role in China of Ms Mizzi Liang, wife of Cabinet Minister Konrad Mizzi, has long been questioned, especially given her generous salary.
Under her contract, the agency was bound to draw up annual performance appraisals.
But Malta Enterprise has now admitted that the appraisals are not available, leaving the question open of whether they were carried out at all.
The agency has informed the Data Protection Commissioner that his request for the documents – on an application filed by this newspaper – cannot be granted “since there are no performance appraisal documents in Malta Enterprise’s possession”. The agency originally invoked data protection rules in refusing to hand over the documents. Replying to an official Freedom of Information request last August, it said: “The documents are deemed personal data and are subject to the Data Protection Act.”
This newspaper continued to push for the appraisals, as they were the only documented evidence from which Ms Mizzi Liang’s performance could be gauged. It asked for a review of the agency’s decision and eventually requested an investigation.
In the circumstances,the provisions of the FOI act do not apply
But Malta Enterprise continued to insist it could not provide them, as they were confidential.
The same attitude was adopted towards a formal investigation carried out by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and continued even when Malta Enterprise was ordered to make the documents available for review by the commissioner himself.
The agency challenged the order, arguing it was not bound to provide the documents and the law governing Malta Enterprise was superior to that of the Freedom of Information Act.
However, soon after it filed a challenge before the Information and Data Protection Appeals Tribunal, the agency changed its stance, informing the commissioner it did not have Ms Mizzi Liang’s performance appraisals.
In its letter to the commissioner, it said her performance is still evidenced in a list of duties, “the most tangible of which have already been made public, namely the Huawei project, the Bank of China project and the Beijing Caissa Tourism deal”.
“It is to be pointed out that Ms Mizzi carried out a number of other promotional/business development initiatives and that the true economic value of these projects/actions can only be determined in the long term,” Malta Enterprise said.
In a letter sent to this newspaper, the commissioner, Saviour Cachia, said “taking account of the fact that Malta Enterprise does not hold any documents containing recorded information of Ms Mizzi Liang’s performance appraisals, it is hereby decided that in the circumstances, the provisions of the FOI act do not apply”.
The requested documents “have not been recorded” by Malta Enterprise, he said.
It was Ms Mizzi Liang herself who once famously invited journalists to “judge her by her performance” when she came to the end of her term. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat struck the same tone when asked to justify her salary, which was granted on a person-of-trust basis.
Last February, after winning the one-man race for Labour’s deputy leadership, Konrad Mizzi officially announced that the couple had decided Ms Mizzi Liang would return to Malta at the end of her contract in August 2016.
Asked whether his wife had indeed returned or was still working in China, Dr Mizzi failed to reply by the time of writing.