PN candidate was granted unpaid leave beyond maximum three-year term

A witness in a court case instituted by former TVM presenter Norman Vella against the Office of the Prime Minister, has said Vella wold apply directly with the OPM to request unpaid leave from his civil service job, instead of through his superior, the Commissioner of Police.

Vella, who in 2013 was reinstated to his job as an immigration officer five years after first availing himself of unpaid leave, is today a Nationalist candidate seeking to become MEP. He filed his discrimination case before the Employment Commission against the prime minister and permanent secretary Kevin Mahoney, after he was re-deployed from the TVM newsroom to his immigration post in May 2013.

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A human resources manager for the police force, which department includes the immigration office, told a court today that Vella had filed his request for unpaid leave to seek employment with the Where's Everybody production house, directly with the OPM - contrary to established procedures.

Noel Grixti d'Amato said that Public Service Commission rules demanded that a civil servant should file such requests through a chain of command, leading to his head of department.

D'Amato said the civil service regulations provided a scheme for government employees granting them a maximum of three years' unpaid leave to try a different employment. However this scheme had been extended to five years for Norman Vella and Donald Spiteri, another officer requested unpaid leave to work as a masseur with the Malta Football Association.

Vella applied for unpaid leave in 2007, but instead of filing his request with then police commissioner John Rizzo, his request was filed directly with the OPM. Following Rizzo's 'no objection', the OPM officially approved the first term of unpaid leave on 2 August, 2007.

Vella then requested a renewal through Rizzo, who approved the extension on 12 June, 2008. A third, and supposedly final renewal, was approved directly through the OPM on 18 August, 2009.

The letter of final approval also instructed Vella to resume his immigration office duties on 31 July 2010. But a letter from the OPM, signed by Anna Caruana Colombo a month before the termination of his unpaid leave, approved a one-year extension of unpaid leave for Vella.

His personal file however contained no requests by Vella asking for a further extension. Furthermore the scheme was only valid for maximum term of three years, which Vella had already exhausted.

On 28 June, 2011, principal permanent secretary Godwin Grima approved a fifth term of unpaid leave.

On his part, Norman Vella claimed that since he could not request further extensions through the scheme, he had applied directly with the Office of the Prime Minister. His superiors were not aware of this request and were only informed of Vella's extension subsequent to the letter signed by Grima.A

Attendance sheets exhibited to the Employment Commission show that Norman Vella reported for work as an immigration officer at the end of July 2012, after a five-year leave of absence when the OPM asked the Commissioner of Police to order Vella back to his duties at MIA as he had exceeded his term of unpaid leave without filing any requests.

Subsequently, OPM officer Anthony Zammit sent a letter to the police HR department approving the deployment of Norman Vella with PBS, "on grounds of public policy". The approval was back-dated to 1 August 2012 and former Police Commissioner John Rizzo did not object to Vella's transfer. However, Vella's personal file did not contain a request for any deployment.

A year later - when a new government was elected to power - Vella was recalled from PBS to resume the duties of immigration officer with immediate effect.

Questioned about the movement of the plaintiff's personal file, HR manager Noel Grixti d'Amato confirmed that he had sent the file to the PBS human resources department in August 2012. The file was returned to his office on 28 June 2013 when Vella was recalled to MIA. But file movement notes show that the file arrived at his office from the Ministry for Home Affairs and National Security, rather than from PBS. "The procedure is that a personal file is kept at the HR department of where the person works, but Vella never worked at MHAS," the witness explained.

Police sergeant Matthew Azzopardi, wno is responsible for police officers and immigration officers at MIA, also confirmed that Vella had not performed any duties at the airport for about five years. While Vella's post was never taken by others, Sgt Azzopardi never requested that the immigration officer is recalled to his duties at MIA.

'People complained Vella was biased'

The last witness was home affairs ministry permanent secretary Kevin Mahoney. "It was I who requested the redeployment of Norman Vella on 27 May 2013, after repeatedly being informed of complaints about his political bias during his television productions."

"I had never met Vella in person but was aware of possible political bias from articles I read in the printed media. I discussed Vella's programme schedule with the chief executive of PBS and also spoke about the issue with ministry chief of staff Silvio Scerri," Mahoney said.

Mahoney said that the new police commissioner also intended to restructure the immigration section and reorganise shift personnel. "Vella was an experienced immigration officer... his redeployment to his former duties, made away with the training needed by anyone freshly assigned to immigration office duties."

The Employment Commission is constituted of chairman Michael Mallia, and lawyers Ramona Frendo, Alessia Zammit Mckeon and Grace Ann Cachia .

The case continues on 27 February at 4pm.