Isn’t life ironic? The chairman of the Malta Council of Science and Technology has spent the last three years or so behaving absolutely abominably, in parliament and out of it, on Facebook and in conversation, parading himself all over town bringing the MCST, which he represents, into disrepute. He was photographed standing on a bar, apparently the worse for wear, leading the assembled crowd in a chant during the Labour Party’s victory celebrations on March 10. The jury is out on whether it is appropriate for the chairman of the Malta Council of Science and Technology to celebrate the victory of one political party over another (particularly given the complications of his seat in parliament). But the jury should not be out, and isn’t, on whether a chairman should be standing on the counter of a public bar, wearing orange trousers and shouting, while doing so.
That, apparently, is not considered improper behaviour, by the powers that be, who felt comfortable reconfirming Pullicino Orlando in his post because “they worked well together”. Yes, we know that. Whether they worked well together in the public interest is another matter. It certainly had nothing to do with services rendered to the Malta Council for Science and Technology.
The person who was bound to be mainly affected, and negatively, by his unfortunate appointment as chairman of that organisation was its (now ex) chief executive officer, Nicholas Sammut, who was a bright spark of 27 when he accepted the position shortly before Pullicino Orlando was dumped on him. Sammut had made the news here when he worked on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. But his age and the fact that he is rather a quiet and unassuming sort meant that he was never going to be able to stand up to a domineering and attention-seeking personality like Pullicino Orlando’s.
It is the CEO who is, by definition, the executive, the one who calls the shots and who is the public face of the organisation. The chairman, if he is non-executive as Pullicino Orlando is, is just a figurehead of sorts. But as expected, the minute Pullicino Orlando arrived, Sammut disappeared from public view, and whenever the Malta Council for Science and Technology was mentioned in the press, it has been in conjunction with Pullicino Orlando’s name – the non-executive chairman as opposed to the chief executive officer.
I wasn’t at all surprised. What surprised me, rather, was how Nicholas Sammut could stand it, how he stood for it. He must have been utterly miserable and yet he stayed. I didn’t expect him to actually face Pullicino Orlando down, because he’s young enough to be his son and much too quiet for that. As somebody who had to endure Pullicino Orlando’s tantrums, ceaseless rants, phone calls, text messages, foot-stamping and crusades of vengeance for quite a long time (and I’m pretty tough), I don’t blame Nicholas Sammut for not telling him where to get off.
He might have done so in private, though I doubt it, but he never put him firmly in his place in public. Presumably, being an intelligent person and having observed his behaviour, Sammut understood that the resulting onslaught would have been unendurable. But in that case he should just have left immediately – anything rather than put up with that situation.
I bring all this up because the media are running stories about Nicholas Sammut having resigned as MCST CEO after “allegations of improper conduct made against him”. It hasn’t been specified what those allegations are or who made them. Sammut has clarified the situation by saying that his resignation had nothing to do with anything like that, that his offer of resignation was the routine one when the government changed, and that his contract expired last month anyway. He merely stayed on until his contract ran out, and then he left. His statement is significant: “I have informed the chairman that I will not be seeking a contract renewal even if a contract is offered to me, for personal and career reasons.”
I wish Nicholas Sammut luck, wherever he goes now. He probably rues the day he returned to Malta to take up that post after his stint at CERN. I had interviewed him back then when he was fresh in the role, and I remember asking him that specific question: “Why did you come back? Isn’t that the sort of thing you should be doing after building a career elsewhere, where the prospects are better?” He talked about being pleased and proud to be able to serve his country in that role, and then he had Pullicino Orlando dumped on him, and I’ll bet that the dream became a nightmare.
Such a waste, really: Malta’s idea of meritocracy has never changed much, not in the private sector, nor in the public sector – dumping the mediocre on the heads of those with real merit, who are generally seen as either dispensable or a threat to the status quo, so that the latter seethe in frustration, then explode and leave, while the mediocre are left behind to rule the roost alone, dragging everything down to their level, the only level they can understand and the only one at which they are comfortable.
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