Sellili presenter ‘given the boot’, PBS engages another PN candidate

The national broadcaster has awarded one of the Nationalist Party candidates and former PN officials a contract for legal services, after having barred another PN candidate from presenting a daytime TV show.

Revolving doors at PBS were put in motion when the broadcaster told Claudette Buttigieg Pace she could not present Sellili while running for election on the Nationalist ticket, and then awarded Scerri & Bonello Advocates, the legal firm of the PN's former general council president Victor Scerri, a new contract for legal services.

As it happens, PBS already employs PN candidate Therese Commodini Cachia, who flanks the Prime Minister during his civil society meetings, for legal representation on Broadcasting Authority hearings.

Last week, Claudette Buttigieg - as she is now known - filed a judicial protest against the Public Broadcasting Services after its editorial board decided she could no longer present her daily programme Sellili since she will be contesting the general election on the PN ticket.

The presenter's feeble attempt to overturn the decision, which is based on the PBS Guidelines on the Obligation of Due Impartiality, will most probably be turned down, and PBS will claim its impartiality is intact.

According to the guidelines, which came into effect on 1 June 2012, news presenters, producers, journalists and presenters of news and current affairs programmes 'are not to undertake promotions or endorsements of political parties or individual candidatures or political organisations as well as endorse commercial products'.

In the meantime, the PBS chief executive Anton Attard confirmed with MaltaToday that a public call for offers was issued in 2011 for debt collection services, and that the contract was awarded to Scerri & Bonello Advocates.

Attard said Scerri's legal firm, which he runs with PN international secretary John Bonello, "provided the lowest priced qualifying offer for debt-collection services."

Scerri relinquished his post as party president after controversially developing a derelict two-storey farmhouse in Bahrija, which was the subject of a debatable MEPA permit. After being sidelined from the PN, Scerri is back in the fold and will be contesting elections alongside Claudette Buttigieg.

Although Scerri's engagement does not breach the station's guidelines, it does shed doubts on the national broadcaster's close links with the Nationalist Party.

Anton Attard told MaltaToday: "With all due respect, it is our opinion, the fact that a member of this firm is a candidate of a political party does not in any way exclude the possibility of his firm participating in a public tendering process."

Attard, the former head of the Nationalist Party's Net Television, added that "were that to be the case, such restrictions would preclude most firms from participating in any kind of offer of this kind".

Scerri will not be the only PN candidate on the PBS payroll. Therese Commodini Cachia, who will be running for the general elections on the PN ticket, also represents PBS.

Meanwhile, in this week's judicial protest, Claudette Buttigieg said TVM's editorial board decision was "arbitrary and without any basis".

She insisted that the candidature will not have an impact on the quality of the show, and Buttigieg also noted that her programme does not deal with political and current affairs.

The TV presenter and singer said broadcasting was her only source of income and PBS was denying her livelihood by barring her from presenting the show on TVM.