Malta owes a lot to Michael Mallia. If this country values integrity and stubborn standing up for what is right, then the memory and example of Michael’s always forceful insistence that it is what is right should be pushed forward and incessantly defended, then yes, this great man should be remembered and thanked for all that he did for so many people.

The son of a former top civil servant Carmel Mallia, Michael was literally born into service to Malta and to so many of its citizens. First, as a very prominent public service executive in the country’s foreign office, and then, when injustices could simply not be taken anymore, he moved to the private sector as a dynamic chief executive with some of the companies in the Farsons Group, and particularly so, L. Farrugia & Sons, Malta’s leading suppliers of bottled gas and that range of fuels.

But he was not just a corporate official. Outside his employer company, he was prominent in the Chamber of Commerce, in the Federation of Industry, and, when private enterprise in Malta faced serious attacks on even the simple possibility of it continuing to independently exist at all in the country, in the Confederation of Private Enterprise (COPE).

COPE must be considered as having been the inspiration in the 1970s of what are, in fact, many of today’s successfully vociferous private sector lobbying bodies. If today they survive and have a voice at all, Michael deserves to be remembered as having worked incessantly and fearlessly for this.

But Michael was much more than that. Together with his first wife Tereża he helped many charities, and particularly those connected with the Jesuit community. And here too, his forcefulness came to the front during the height of the struggle in defence of private education continuing to exist in the country. Together with the erudite Jesuit Fr Anton Azzopardi, Michael, in the Parents Teachers Associations of St Aloysius’ College and in the Federation of PTAs, fought incessantly for the country’s private schools to continue to exist, for a time even to operate in an “underground” format.

Never ever was Michael awed by the positions and standing of occupants of high political positions, and in this, against the formerly infamous points system linked to obligatory worker-student status for university entrance, and in other issues, he was always a leader in making arguments with precision, integrity, and forcefulness.

Michael always gave his all to whichever cause he believed in, and this he always did with a kind approach that saw his employees, his professional and voluntary sector colleagues, admiring his approach, his tact, his enthusiasm for whatever cause they were all working for.

Michael always gave his all to whichever cause he believed in, and this he always did with a kind approach that saw his employees, his professional and voluntary sector colleagues, admiring his approach, his tact, his enthusiasm for whatever cause they were all working for

Michael had a big heart and his totally extrovert personality also came with a strong sense of humour. When he decided to slow down and moved from Attard to live in Marsascala with his second wife, it suddenly seemed as if he had said enough to public life, and the country was so much the poorer for having missed someone who was always strong and upright in defending the right to competent independent thinking.

Perhaps it is this right which will remain his greatest hallmark and which the country should value beyond anything else. Indeed, Michael Mallia was a living example of integrity, hard work and forcefulness.

To his very clever sons and daughter, and to his surviving wife, I extend my sincerest condolences. May his memory live long.