Abela, Fenech Adami trade barbs over AFM promotion injustices

Home affairs minister Carmelo Abela and PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami clashed over AFM promotions that were dished out in administrations past and present.

Fenech Adami warned that the government has demoralised the Malta Armed Forces by repeatedly promoting people close to the Labour Party.

“It is an undisputed fact that the current government has used the ADM to appease people close to the Labour Party. It systematically purged the AFM’s high-ranking officials and many of their replacements now take their orders directly from Castille.

He was speaking in Parliament during a debate on a Bill that will allow former soldiers who were injured in the line of duty to receive their disability pensions retroactively. However, discussion largely focused on injustices within the AFM.

“With its battle-cry that it wants to fix injustices, the government ended up creating fresh injustices with other people,” he warned.

Similarly, he said that some soldiers are demotivated at the fact that the “goalposts for promotion” were shifted in a new handbook that was recently handed out to AFM officials.

“They had been working for a long time for those promotions according to the old parameters, but the goalposts have now changed for them,” he said.

However, home affairs minister Carmelo Abela retorted that the handbook places greater emphasis on the soldiers’ skills, and lashed out at injustices that took place under previous Nationalist administrations.

“I don’t want to justify current wrongdoings by referring to previous ones, but we must be fair with history, and Fenech Adami is trying to give off the impression that everything was rosy within the AFM before 2013 and that no injustices ever took place.”

He recounted how former Brigadier Rupert had frozen promotions for five years, after which promotions were handed out to people close to the Nationalist Party.

“This led to instability within the armed forced, and in most cases such injsutices were proven as so by a board set up by this government,” he said.

He added that former PN administrations had created unnecessary posts of colonels and lieutenant colonels.

“Between 2005 and 2013, 20 people were promoted to lieutenant colonels and seven who were promoted to colonels. Out of those seven, four had only recently been promoted to lieutenant colonel.

“The PN hardly has a good track record when it comes to promotions within the armed forces, and if they think that AFM promotions in the last three years were handed out to people close to the Labour Party, then that’s a sign that injustice was done against them in the past.”

He added that people have complained to him that too many AFM promotions are handed out to people close to the PN.

‘Anomaly in AFM pension system’ – Fenech Adami

Fenech Adami also called for a revision of the AFM pension system, warning that the current one is creating “anomalies” whereby people get higher pensions depending on the year in which they retire.

“It is not fair that people who served for the same amount of time in the force and reached the same rank are now receiving different pensions simply because they retired in different years,” he said. “The time has come to address this injustice.”

Abela was coy in his response, stating that he is open to a debate on a change in the pension system but suggesting that the government’s immediate pension priorities may lie elsewhere.

“Last year, the government increased pensions for the first time in 25 years, and its intention is to start off with those people at the very bottom. It’s only natural that people care about their own personal interests, but this is a question of priorities.”