Question on positions of trust at health ministry unanswered three years later

A parliamentary question on persons of trust employed within the ministry of health remains unaswered, a full three years after it was first tabled.

In response to a PQ by shadow health minister Claudette Buttigieg, health minister Chris Fearne said that the information requsted “is still being collated”.

The original PQ was tabled back in November 2013 by Opposition MP Claudio Grech to then health minister Godfrey Farrugia.

Grech had asked Farugia for details on people of trust within his ministry – their names, their positions, the date on which they were appointed, their academic qualifications, their salaries and perks, and the names of the people who had handpicked them to the role.

He had also asked for details of their predecessors – including their current jobs, whether they too were appointed on a trust basis, and whether they were forced out of their jobs.

However, neither Farrugia nor his eventual successor Konrad Mizzi respnded to the question, forcing Opposition MPs to keep tabling the same question again.

In July, Fearne provided Parliament with a list of the people he had personally appointed to positions of trust since replacing Mizzi in April 28, in the wake of the Panama Papers scandal.

Those were Paul Dalli as head of customer initiatives within the health ministry, Mario Enriquez as a technical and maintenance officer, Carmen Ciantar as CEO of the Foundation of Medical Services, and Mario Cassar as an operations support officer.