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Karl Schembri
After 18 months of job interviews and headhunting for the controversial post of news manager at the national broadcasting station, the Prime Minister’s office has decreed the whole process “compromised” when Times journalist Vanessa Macdonald was tipped for the top post by Austin Gatt’s ministry, despite her fourth placing on the PBS short list.
MaltaToday can reveal the Investments Ministry had given the go-ahead to Macdonald’s appointment even though she was preceded by three other candidates on the short list drawn up by the interviewing board. The decision was shot down on Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s instructions.
The short list of would-be news managers in order of priority were: Carmel Attard, the present acting Head of MIC, Roderick Agius, a Net TV journalist and Carmen Sammut a university lecturer and for a brief period a non-executive director at Super One. The Times journalist Vanessa Macdonald was fourth on the list, followed by Nathaniel Attard, also a Net TV reporter and Charlo Bonnici, a former head of news at Net and presently the head of secretariat of Louis Galea’s ministry.
The revelations shed new light about the prime minister’s direct intervention into the matter in the last weeks, which had fuelled much speculation about the possible motives behind the abrupt abortion of contract negotiations with the Times journalist in what is seen as a kick in the teeth to Lawrence Gonzi’s overconfident minister in charge of the PBS restructuring. In an official letter sent on 28 September by Lawrence Gonzi’s head of secretariat, Edgar Galea-Curmi, to Gatt’s head of secretariat Claudio Grech, the prime minister’s office makes it clear that “the process used for the appointment of the news manager was compromised by the procedure that was adopted. Under the circumstances it is recommended that you do not proceed with the appointment as suggested in this report.”
The correspondence, together with a press release announcing the scrapping of the recruitment process and the internal appointment of Sylvana Cristina, was published by the Investments Ministry on Wednesday night, but instead of using the normal DOI channels, Gatt’s communications men just posted the explosive communication on the ministry’s website, where it remain unpicked by the daily press.
Asked in what way the procedure was compromised, Galea-Curmi exposed a new twist to the saga in his reply to MaltaToday: “The second applicant that was offered the post of news manager placed fourth in the selection process. While the first placed refused the job offer, the second and third placed were not offered the post. The job was offered to the fourth placed.”
Headed by PBS chief executive Andrew Psaila, the interviewing board made up of a MIMCOL official and a PriceWaterhouseCoopers representative had chosen Malta-EU Information Centre acting chief Carmel Attard for the vacant post.
MaltaToday is reliably informed that Net TV senior journalist Roderick Agius qualified as the second candidate on the short list, followed by journalism studies expert and former Super One director Carmen Sammut.
But when Attard repeatedly made it clear he had second thoughts about his appointment, the Investments Ministry had directed the interviewing board to skip Agius and Sammut and go for Macdonald, with the reason given being that the second and third candidates had “a political baggage” that may have interfered with the station’s image of a balanced news bulletin.
Sources said the ministry’s decision jarred with the position taken by the interviewing board. In fact, the board had already started negotiations with Roderick Agius in April and discussions with the candidate were at an advanced stage.
“I was told by the PBS chief executive last April that I was short listed with another person,” Agius said yesterday night. “We discussed the conditions of work, including the salary and my notice period. But months passed until I received a letter from PriceWaterhouseCoopers saying my application was no longer being considered, without stating the reasons why.”
When Macdonald’s name surfaced for the first time in the press at the end of July, she already had a copy of the contract in hand and discussions with the PBS chairman were all but concluded. But sources say the unofficial announcement was met with strong reactions from Castille, where the process was delayed indefinitely and the Times journalist left in limbo for more than two months.
In a MaltaToday story carried on 28 August, Macdonald had expressed her amazement at her stalled recruitment, which had also put her in an awkward position with her employer at Strickland House.
“I’ve heard absolutely nothing since I last spoke to the PBS chairman about a month ago, when we discussed the contract,” she had said. “The ball is now in their court, but frankly I don’t understand why the prime minister or his office would go into it, as the Labour press is suggesting.”
While a private employer may have the liberty to choose his staff irrespective of short lists drawn up by interviewing boards, sources say the government would have risked legal claims by the two candidates preceding Macdonald if they became aware of the PBS short list.
On the other hand, the government may still have breached equal opportunity laws in excluding Agius and Sammut for their “political baggage”, particularly as neither of the two respectively ever served as PN or MLP officials or candidates, nor are they known to have been blinded by partisan allegiances throughout their careers.
Acting on Galea-Curmi’s instructions, Gatt’s ministry ordered PBS chairman Andrew Agius Muscat in a letter dated 3 October to “abort the selection process”, thereby ending once and for all the outside recruitment process that has spanned over a year and a half of controversies and much damage to the broadcasting station, including the Ombudsman’s condemnation for excluding former PBS veteran Charles Flores from the first selection process last year.
Last Tuesday, Agius Muscat replied to Grech with another firecracker letter published by the Investments Ministry on its website last Wednesday.
“While we (do) not necessarily agree with this conclusion, for the sake of PBS Ltd we recommend that Ms Sylvana Cristina is deployed to the current vacant post of Head of News,” the chairman wrote.
Galea-Curmi insisted the “recommendation” to abort the process had nothing to do personally with the prime minister’s views about Macdonald.
Suggesting that the prime minister’s office shared Gatt’s concern about the claimed “political baggage” of Agius and Sammut, he said: “PBS found themselves in a catch-22 situation. On the one hand they had a selection board report that placed the applicants as I have already explained. On the other hand, the PBS Board was aware that the post of news manager at PBS is a very sensitive post. Considering the second and third placed for the post following would have been perceived as a politically loaded appointment. The fourth place was considered by PBS as the most politically neutral.”
Agius and Sammut however contest the assessment of their professional integrity.
“I feel that like every other person I had, and still have, every right to apply and to be considered for this post,” the Net TV journalist said. “I made it clear in the interview that I wouldn’t have applied if I felt conditioned because of my job at Net TV. It’s unfair to be excluded because of that, as I would have expected them to judge me on my own merits. Why should my career be used against me?”
The former Super One director, who is now lecturing in international journalism at the international relations department of the University of Malta, said the “political baggage” claim was a “pretext” to exclude her.
“I don’t know anything about the short list, I never received a reply,” Sammut said, admitting that she had heard about her third placing for the first time yesterday night.
“I don’t have a political baggage,” she protested. “I served for some two years as non-executive director at Super One; it had nothing to do with political decisions. If anything I gained company experience and I can’t understand why that should tarnish my CV. I never was an MLP candidate, and I’ve always kept my distance from partisan politics. It’s just a pretext to exclude me.”
Ironically, Sammut is now presenting a newspaper analysis programme on Radju Malta – the PBS radio station. In the early 90s, she worked as a journalist and newscaster with Television Malta.
And yet another head of secretariat is embroiled in the story, from Louis Galea’s education ministry: Charlo Bonnici placed sixth on the short list, preceded by Net TV journalist Nathaniel Attard.
Asked whether the office of the prime minister approved of Cristina’s appointment, Galea-Curmi said: “The appointment does not require OPM’s approval. The issue for OPM was never about individuals. PBS’s choice in the circumstance makes perfect sense.”
Once officially appointed, Cristina, who is presently the Head of Programmes, will head the newsroom and be legally registered as editor on a definite three-year performance-based contract. Her current remuneration package is expected to remain the same.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.
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