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7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 NOVEMBER 2025 BOOK REVIEW get ready': Mario Cutajar looks years at the helm Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar has penned his autobiography—a collection of events, some at Zammit leafed through the aptly titled book, Noti. plans covering the same period. For the first time, candidates for leadership posts had to submit a three-year work plan. ey called this "3D planning" so everyone could grasp it: Define, design, deliver. His goal wasn't more bu- reaucracy, but better service for citizens. He notes that, in 2013, bureau- cracy sat at the top of the Labour manifesto and, once in govern- ment, became a programme to deliver—his main brief. He argues that bureaucracy is not inherently bad—it exists in both public and private sectors and is meant to make work better and more ef- ficient. It records what has hap- pened and gives continuity to actions, like a textbook that saves needless re-experimenting. e real problem is excess, especially when the public service looks too far inward; that is where initiative dies. Office ACs and ministerial cars He illustrates the mindset with a small scene. One day, during an early onset heatwave, the centrally controlled air-conditioning in his office kept blowing hot air. Low- ering the thermostat made no dif- ference. He assumed disuse had jammed the unit and reported a fault, only to learn other offices had the same problem. e of- ficer responsible for switching the system with the seasons said she had received no written request to change to cooling. He held his tongue. For Cutajar, these are the attitudes the public service must fix if it wants to work properly. e same attention to procedure appears around elections. Since 1981, Malta has held general elec- tions on a Saturday. On the Friday before polling day, the automatic resignations of persons of trust in all ministries take effect. at same day, ministers' cars and GM number plates are returned. e police hold the cars, while the Cabinet Office keeps the plates. Once the new Cabinet is an- nounced, the cars are reassigned and the GM plates reissued. e plate numbers show each min- ister's seniority in Cabinet. e prime minister sets that seniority when forming the Cabinet, usu- ally based on experience in Cabinet, in parliament, and in the party. Language of Cabinet minutes Records tell a story too, includ- ing the language used to record decisions. When he is appointed to a post, Cutajar says he always leafs through previous records related to that role. In his role as Secretary to the Cabinet, he no- ticed a pattern: Under Nationalist governments, Cabinet minutes were written in English; under Labour, they were written in Mal- tese. is is neither tradition nor rule. He believes it is a matter of instinct, because before even checking what his predecessors had done, he wrote the minutes in Maltese. From records and routines, Cutajar turns to national mourn- ing, where protocol meets mem- ory. In November 2020, inside the office of Prime Minister Robert Abela, news came that Oliver Friggieri had passed away. Work paused and those present shared their memories of the poet and scholar. Cutajar recalls meeting him at Delimara and cites a photo of Dom Mintoff with Friggieri— Mintoff saying, "Let's take a pic- ture together... you are the spirit, I am the matter." When someone said protocol would not allow a state funeral for Friggieri, Cutajar replied that nothing stopped the State from giving a funeral by the State and a memorial: "He deserved it, and so it was." He argued for Floria- na as the memorial site, not only Friggieri's hometown but a sym- bolic route into the capital on Triq Sant'Anna, near Dun Karm, whom Friggieri studied. Cutajar is just as firm when he turns to culture. Despite his achievements at the helm of the public service, he says maltabien- nale.art was the largest and finest project of his public career. As the driving force behind a Maltese bi- ennale designed to sit alongside some 350 biennales worldwide, he set out a distinctive model: Each artist's pavilion or installation is paired with a Heritage Malta site, using the heritage space itself as the setting for the contemporary art experience. UNESCO quickly recognised how closely this idea aligns with its mission. Daniela Attard Bezzina, who was entrusted with proofreading this book and who spent two years as a member of Mario Cutajar's staff, when many of the transfor- mations within the public service described in Noti were actually coming to life, says: "is was not just a major overhaul, but an out- right revolution spearheaded by a no-nonsense visionary, and my job at the time was to convey its message to the public in a simple yet effective way. Many years before, I had also worked with Mario Cutajar at the General Workers' Union. Proof- reading and providing other in- put for this book was therefore an exercise in recollection too, as I knew several of the characters he describes. Cutajar is not just a born leader. He writes excep- tionally well, with an excellent grasp of the Maltese idiom and an instinct for great introductions and punchy endings. A man to be reckoned with, a book to grace any library." e author is a communications strategist attending a parliamentary committee session the turn of the millennium. Behind Cutajar, Bonnici who was acting as the GWU's legal legal drafting. president. (From left) Miriam Vella, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Cabinet Secretary Mario Cutajar and AFM Deputy Commander Mario Cutajar talking to Dom Mintoff in the foyer of the Workers' Memorial Building in Valletta towards the end of the 1980s. Next to Cutajar (white shirt) is Lino Cassar.