|
Karl Schembri and Matthew Vella
After all the high drama at the Malta Tourism Authority, with the final act on Friday witnessing the mass resignation of all the board members amid suspicions that one of them leaked a draft letter written by the chairman, it may well turn out that the new board will have the same members after all.
Despite the catastrophic consequences of the new chairman’s insistence on probing the leak, Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech may end up facing the same board members or their deputies given that the tourism stakeholders entitled to nominate their directors on the board remain the same.
“The way that the private sector appoints its representatives on the MTA board is regulated by law and I have no intention to make any changes in that direction,” Zammit Dimech told MaltaToday yesterday when asked what he was going to do to avoid having the same directors. “It is up to all stakeholders to act in a responsible manner and make appropriate choices.”
That does not solve any of the chairman’s general sense of mistrust, who just upon his appointment was faced with a leak he was obsessed to solve.
“I think that’s a question I cannot answer at this stage,” Chairman Sam Mifsud said when asked if he would work with the same members. “They might not be re-nominated.”
He later added however that “if the minister had to accept their nomination to the board, yes I would work with them.”
While he insisted he did not regret the investigation, Mifsud admitted there was nothing he could do to stop other leaks in the future. “I don’t think there are any measures to stop further leaks – I don’t want to go into another ‘leak issue’, and I don’t want to imagine there would be any more leaks, but get down to the job of sorting out our marketing efforts,” he said.
Getting down to the job and “moving on” was just what the minister had appealed to board members just before they resigned, urging them “to put this episode behind them and concentrate on the way ahead”.
Still, yesterday the minister said he accepted their resignations “without the slightest hesitation”.
“The letter of resignation by the Board members was sent to me after my appealing to them to ‘move on’,” he said. “It was clear that in the circumstances the board had become unmanageable and in those circumstances I opted to take immediate and decisive action by accepting their resignation. I did so without the slightest hesitation on my part.”
Even Zammit Dimech was unrepentant about appointing lawyer Joe Zammit Maempel to investigate the leak, who reportedly pointed out the possibility of board members having their phones tapped by the police.
“I am confident that Dr Zammit Maempel conducted his investigation into the leaks in an appropriate and correct manner,” Zammit Dimech said. “The leaks were in breach of law and of the Code of Ethics that applies to members who sit on boards of public authorities. To have further leaks even after that the investigation was in progress is simply reprehensible and it is not correct to try to change an investigation into the leaks that were being made into an investigation on the person investigating. Equally it is simply absurd and ridiculous to suggest that any phone tapping was ever suggested when such a procedure would is this type of case is absolutely not possible in terms of law.”
A week ago however, Zammit Dimech did admit to MaltaToday that he was approached by a board member who expressed his disgust at the way they were treated by Zammit Maempel. He also admitted that the board member who spoke to him was given the impression that they could have their telephones tapped by the police.
Link: www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/09/24/top_story.html
|
