The Malta Council for Science and Technology, which manages a multi-million euro budget, has been without a board of directors for the past 18 months.

Although the Office of the Prime Minister had said last year the directors’ appointment was “imminent”, this “inexplicably” did not yet happen and decisions were being made by its chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, council sources said.

MCST chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.

Dr Pullicino Orlando, a dentist, is a former Nationalist MP who unsuccessfully contested the last general election on a Labour ticket.

All administrative matters, including procurement and recruitment, were being handled by Dr Pullicino Orlando, they pointed out.

“The situation is more complicated because the executive chairman is not present all the time since he still has to attend his private clinic,” a senior official said. This meant, he added, that decisions were either not made or were taking a long time to be made, apart from the fact that there was nobody at the chairman’s level or above to then vet such decisions.

It is not yet known why the directorship posts have remained vacant since June 2017.

When the Times of Malta reported on the matter last summer, the government had said the appointment of the board was “imminent”. This is also declared in the science agency’s website.

The executive chairman is not present all the time

Asked again on Friday about the state of affairs and why the board was still not appointed, a spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister reiterated this would be done soon. Asked for a timeline, the spokeswoman said it would happen by the end of March.

The previous Nationalist government had appointed Dr Pullicino Orlando as non-executive chairman. Then, following Labour’s return to power in 2013 and the departure of the CEO, Dr Pullicino Orlando assumed an executive role and was given an annual package of €60,000.

After the Times of Malta had spoken to the MCST receptionist and his assistant at his Żebbuġ clinic, it resulted that Dr Pullicino Orlando usually spent one day a week at the science agency’s office in Bighi. He had, however, insisted that he still spent 40 hours a week doing MCST-related work, most of which consisted of meetings outside his office.

The last annual report published by the agency covers 2015.