Discipline and abuse

The recent news that the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) has been ordered to pay almost €414,000 in damages to a former top official who was unjustly fired by then CEO Joseph Cuschieri flabbergasted the man in the street.

Reuben Fenech, the Chief Operations Officer (COO) of the authority since 2018, had sued the MFSA before the Industrial Tribunal after he was dismissed with immediate effect in September 2019.

Just three months previously he had received a letter of appraisal from the head, People and Culture, stating that his performance was “meeting expectations.” Cuschieri had added an attachment to that letter, listing a number of areas which he wanted Fenech to improve. One wonders whether Cuschieri’s performance in the many posts he was given met expectations. But that is another story.

In July 2019, Cuschieri sent Fenech ‘additional feedback’, again highlighting those areas and promised to send further feedback in August. But during a face-to-face meeting in September, Cuschieri told Fenech that his job was being terminated with immediate effect.

Fenech then took his grievances before the Industrial Tribunal that found that Fenech’s dismissal was ‘premeditated’ and unfair since Cuschieri did not follow the procedures set out in the Staff Handbook that was an integral part of the employment contract.

When testifying before the Tribunal, Cuschieri said that he could not appoint a disciplinary board since it was the COO who normally chaired such a board.

The Tribunal said that the CEO could have appointed a disciplinary board headed by somebody else. Instead Cuschieri placed himself in the ‘precarious position of prosecutor and judge’.

Cuschieri claimed that his style was ‘pragmatic and result-oriented’ whereas Fenech was ‘pedantic and picking on details.’ Fenech, on the other hand, said that he based his work practices on public sector rules.

The Tribunal found that Cuschieri had solely decided to terminate Fenech’s appointment without the approval of the Board of Governors of MFSA.

The PN called on the prime minister to remove Cuschieri from his current post as CEO of Project Green, saying he had committed an injustice and ruined an employee's career, adding that ‘If he is not removed, Robert Abela will be perpetuating a culture of impunity in the country. He would be rewarding those who do wrong, break the law, and ruin people’s lives.’

I do not know who was right or wrong in the dispute between Cuschieri and Fenech. It was certainly a clash of personalities and probably there were good and bad reasons for the dismissal. But I am concerned with the way ‘discipline’ was meted by the then MFSA chairperson. I also refrain from making comparisons with the way Cuschieri himself behaved when he was chairperson of different state entities.

What is most evident to me is the way discipline is meted out in the civil service in comparison with what happens in the plethora of public corporations and entities whose employees are not civil servants.

To point out an example, I mention the case of a watchman who should have been on duty when a fire broke out in the property he was ‘watching’. The Director of the Department concerned could not take disciplinary steps, let alone fire the man from his job. It was the job of the Public Service Commission to do that. He was fired from government service, of course.

The system sometimes works in the interest of the accused since the prosecutor in front of the PSC Disciplinary Board is usually a government employee working in the same department with the accused; while the accused have every right to bring a private lawyer to defend them. I think that government departments should engage private lawyers to prosecute those accused of breaching the rules; as many a time civil servants find it difficult to prosecute those with whom they work.

But what happens in all those state organisations, whose staff are not state employees?

Is there a free for all as the Cuschieri-Fenech case reveals?

Presumably, every state entity has its own disciplinary board and those accused of some breach or other are given the possibility of defending themselves.

Today, the situation is such that many of these state entities employ people who blatantly and publicly support the government.

Government employees are protected from blatant politically motivated decisions. Not so those who are employed by the plethora of state entities that exist today.

Too costly to maintain

I was not surprised to read that the Paola local council had decided to remove a green wall hanging on the Corradino Correctional Facility façade because it became too costly to maintain.

The green wall was set up by the central government in 2020 and cost €30,000 but, according to the council, the materials used were unsuitable for Malta’s climate.

Paola local council executive secretary Fabian Mizzi, in comments to MaltaToday, said the material was absorbing too much water which should have been used by the plants themselves.

‘Its management was an issue since much more water than initially anticipated was needed, and therefore the plants needed to be replaced more frequently and at one stage it was no longer feasible to maintain’, Mizzi said. ‘Its maintenance costs were covered with the gardening contract the Council had at the time.’

Eventually, it was no longer feasible to continue maintaining the project.

Asked if the council plans to replace the vertical garden, Mizzi replied in the negative, saying ‘the newly elected Council has not even discussed the issue in its first meetings’.

The state agency Ambjent Malta was tasked with monitoring the wall for the first six months, after which the responsibility was transferred to the local council.

I hope that this story is a lesson to all.

Decisions that involve improving aesthetics should not be taken lightly. The initial costs alone should not be the main factor in taking such decisions. Maintenance is far more important.

In Malta, we have the tendency not to consider the impact of recurrent maintenance costs when embarking on many projects. In this case, it was just a small investment but the lesson should be taken.

Perhaps giving the responsibility of maintenance to the contractor who put the green wall up in the first place would have been a better way of doing it, if one were to actually do it.