AWAS CEO Joe Baldacchino has been given a “severe warning” for conspiring to create a fake vacancy to be filled by the son of a Home Affairs Ministry Official.
Mr Baldacchino told ministry official Ludgard Scicluna in what was meant to be a private Facebook message that he had “planted” the idea in the permanent secretary’s head that the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers (AWAS) needed somebody with experience in logistics.
A screenshot of the message posted on Mr Scicluna’s wall was uploaded on daphnecaruanagalizia.com
Mr Baldacchino said in the message that the job would be created specifically for Mr Scicluna’s son.
The AWAS CEO said Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela, who is responsible for the agency, was fully aware of the ploy.
Questioned today, Mr Abela denied any knowledge of the whole affair.
“The point is, in my experience in these two years, certain people name-drop without the minister’s knowledge. I only got to know about what was written after [it became public],” Mr Abela said.
He said the call for applications for the vacancy would not be issued.
The minister said he was not ruling out that discussions about the vacancy took place with the permanent secretary, but was merely saying he was not informed “about what was written [on Facebook]”.
Asked to clarify this statement, Mr Abela said he had no idea about the whole issue prior to it being made public.
In November, the Times of Malta reported that AWAS workers were angered by the hiring of Mr Baldacchino’s son as a support worker.
Mr Abela said today that Mr Baldacchino’s son had no reason not to apply for the AWAS job after a public call for applications.
In a reaction, the Nationalist Party said no one was believing Mr Abela.
“Minister Carmelo Abela has ended up inventing one excuse after another to try to give the impression that he did not know about anything.
“No one is believing that Carmelo Abela did not know anything. And even if that were the case, then he had a crisis of leadership in his ministry because he does not know what is happening in the ministry he is supposed to lead,” the party said.
It accused the minister of trying to shirk his responsibilities and said this was, unfortunately, yet another case of abuse of power and discrimination under this government, discrimination not only between Labourites and Nationalists but also between Labourites and those closest to the corrupt clique.