On his first day of government, Muscat demands his civil service’s trust

At 39, Joseph Muscat may be a young prime minister but he is keen to avoid the mistakes of his predecessor, Alfred Sant.

Godwin Grima, the outgoing principal permanent secretary, has invited permanent secretaries, chairpersons and members of government boards and committees to "offer their resignation in order to enable the government to effect any changes that are considered desirable". They have been told that when in doubt as to whether an offer of resignation is to be tabled or not, "the offer is to be submitted just the same".

The request, copied to Mario Cutajar as designate-head of the civil service and Cabinet secretary, is part of an act of political courtesy that when administrations change, the men and women who run the inner operations of the government and civil service ask for their new political masters' trust.

Muscat may have learnt this from Alfred Sant's own experience at retaining, albeit in full reconciliatory spirit, the services of Joseph R. Grima in 1996. Sant himself yesterday remarked in his blog on inewsmalta.com that he doubted that the Nationalists could be 'loyal' in Opposition - so the new Labour government, which has yet to "hit the ground running" on its power station proposal, wants to ensure it has the full cooperation of the public service over these crucial two years.

Permanent secretaries head the civil service in each ministry and are usually appointed on three-year contracts. Their appointment is made by the prime minister in consultation with the Public Service Commission, so Muscat can remove these heads at will.

As Cutajar, formerly a deputy secretary-general of the General Workers Union, is brought in, out goes Godwin Grima, the principal permanent secretary. It was under Grima that an investigation into a serious breach of ethics by another permanent secretary, Rita Schembri, was simply allowed to be ignored by the Public Service Commission and instead given to the Auditor General to assess.

So it is clear that Muscat's ambitious programme demands that the people he can trust are close to him. He brings on Keith Schembri, the brains behind the 'Malta Taghna Lkoll' campaign. At 37, the entrepreneur changed a humble paper merchants' started by his father into a group of companies that supplies major newspapers with their paper and printing presses, recycling of waste paper, and industrial supplies. And he is joined by Kurt Farrugia, 31, a former journalist who stepped into the post of communications coordinator for the Labour Party soon after Muscat was elected leader.

Tongues wagged at news that Muscat had appointed a successful businessman - and not a social worker like the former prime minister - by his side. Schembri will now relinquish his directorships. Civil servants are only required to relinquish directorships if they conflict with their responsibilities. Comparisons may be odious, but when Rita Schembri occupied the OPM's post of internal investigations, she was not even asked to relinquish her directorship in an investment firm, but simply to suspend it pending the Auditor General's inquiry.

If Muscat is to win trust from a civil service that was led by the Nationalist government for the past 15 years, it will be through Mario Cutajar, 62, a civil servant since 1976 - the same year he was elected a shop steward. In 1988, he became the General Workers Union's section representative of the public services section, and 10 years later the union's deputy secretary-general.

Dubbed 'the brains behind the union' in his time, Cutajar was a regular contributor to the union's press, as well as having authored several political books, the most recent a history of the Labour Party and the SKS's tome on Dom Mintoff. From unionist to government, Cutajar now finds himself part of the same establishment which in 2001 he said he was not happy with. When MaltaToday had asked him whether he considered himself a "radical", Cutajar had said the term did not annoy him. "I consider myself as a radical for the simple reason that I'm not happy with the establishment. Workers are not given their due importance in society. If you consider that being a radical, then yes, I am one."