PBS board questioned John Bundy over programme farm-outs to Tarxien studio

The directors of the Public Broadcasting Services questioned CEO John Bundy about programmes produced in-house at TVM, that were being planned to be farmed out to a private studio in Tarxien.

In a meeting held sometime in August, the PBS directors learned of a decision to have popular daytime show TVAM, Niskata and Illum ma’ Steph to be farmed out to a private studio, Timecare.

It was through the intervention of the board that TVAM was kept at the TVM studios.

The decision was one of a series that later led the PBS directors to take a vote of no confidence in Bundy, although the CEO has not yet been dismissed.

Bundy did not reply to questions sent by MaltaToday by email and SMS as to why the programmes were being shifted to the Timecare studios, and what the cost-benefit was to take the shows out of TVM’s studios.

A source told MaltaToday that the farm-outs had not been vetted by the PBS financial controller.

The board meeting that dis- cussed the matter was also left with an inconclusive reply as to why PBS wanted to pay a private studio to produce shows that had previously been recorded in-house.

The PBS board has now agreed to appoint an ad hoc inquiry to determine Bundy’s culpability in an alleged breach of procurement rules.

The independent inquiry will establish the extent to which PBS procurement rules were breached on Bundy’s watch, when an unprecedented eight-year car leasing contract was signed without any vetting from the procurement manager.

It will also provide an independent avenue for ascertaining whether Bundy should be sacked, after Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said last week it was up to the PBS board to take that decision.

A €500,000 car-leasing deal, which included Bundy’s own company car, was never green-lit by the board of directors. The issue had only been raised at board level back on 18 January, 2017, when Bundy referred to the PBS car fleet. “[He] noted that the cars were now old. He had sought advice on whether to buy new cars or go for leasing, and found that it was cheaper to go for leasing,” minutes of a recent meeting, seen by MaltaToday, said.

Bundy was said to have used a procurement method only employed for minor purchases, by obtaining three quotations from leasing suppliers. The person actually responsible for procurement, corporate services manager Edmund Tabone, and financial controller Brian Grech, were completely side-lined.

The directors have already carried out a secret vote that delivered a unanimous verdict of no confidence in Bundy, which was communicated to PBS chairman Tonio Portughese.

Bundy was installed in his position without any formal call for applications for CEO, after the departure of Anton Attard, on a four-year contract.

In their letter to Portughese, the board said they had convened to discuss the way Bundy “had, on several occasions, ignored the board of directors and taken decisions which required the approval of the board”.

The board said it considered Bundy’s attitude towards the PBS directors as one that showed a lack of respect.

“Worse than that, it shows a lack of awareness of what the relation- ship should be between the CEO and the board of directors, which in terms of the law have enormous personal responsibility for everything that happens in the company.”

The directors said they were also faced with legal threats from companies when they attempted to reverse Bundy’s “arbitrary decisions”.

“These decisions were presented to the board as a fait accompli, and the directors were faced with threats of legal action against them personally and the company.”

The directors said they could no longer tolerate the situation and declared they had no faith in Bundy.