Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/531627
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 24 JUNE 2015 3 News Pellegrini is 'unofficially' chief of staff inside Dalli's ministry MAT THEW VELLA FORMER Union Print manager Ronnie Pellegrini has refused to confirm what his role inside civil liberties minister Helena Dalli 's secretariat is, after prot- estations from the Office of the Prime Minister were raised over his employment. MaltaToday understands that staff at Helena Dalli 's ministry are under the impression that Pellegrini is her chief of staff, and as such is carrying out that role assisting her. But Helena Dalli has denied having taken on the former aco- lyte of Labour minister Lorry Sant, as chief of staff, and in- stead said he is occupying a po- sition inside her secretariat. Pellegrini 's name was even list- ed as 'chief of staff ' in a website update, before the name was re- moved soon after it became ap- parent that Dalli had employed the former GWU employee. Asked point blank what his role is, Pellegrini yesterday told MaltaToday: "I work in the sec- retariat," refusing to state ex- actly his position. He had nothing to say when it was put to him that the OPM had requested his position as chief of staff to be removed from the ministry's website. There is no official chief of staff listed on Dalli 's ministry website. Soon after Labour's election to power, the PN took the govern- ment to task for appointing Pel- legrini as a director of the Malta Freeport Corporation. It complained that the appoint- ment f lew in the face of prom- ises that appointments would be made on the basis of merit. Ronnie Pellegrini Minister insists nothing irregular in boarding out CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The minis- ter said he did not know the inspector involved, and that a sworn statement by the medical board's coordinator, stated that the normal boarding-out procedures were followed. Abela also said the coordinator did not know the person concerned, and that there was no favouritism towards him. Abela conceded that it was only co- incidental that the former inspector was boarded out within a few days of making his request for medical screening: his request was submit- ted just a few days before a meet- ing of the medical board which was already scheduled. The board had fewer than the 15 cases it normally considered in one sitting, and there- fore the inspector's request could be considered immediately. In a reaction, energy minister Kon- rad Mizzi said he had intervened as majority shareholder in Enemalta to tell chairman Frederick Azzopardi that the engagement of the former police inspector was "unacceptable". The Nationalist Party said the controversial posting was another "shady deal… kept under wraps by this government, until details of this engagement were revealed in Parlia- ment. Mizzi's action is merely a reac- tion to the public outcry against the Muscat government which failed miserably in its pledge for meritoc- racy." Under the Public Service Manage- ment Code, former public officers can be reinstated in the grade they held on resignation after having been medically boarded out. But they must present a medical certificate stating that they are fit to resume duties, and such statement must be confirmed by a government medical board. The re-instatement of public offic- ers on "grounds of public interest" can also be considered when the performance of specialised duties in key positions is required. But on re- instatement, officers will be placed in their former grade, in the same salary point they enjoyed on resignation.