The returning Manuel Mallia is considering appointing new people in his secretariat for competitiveness, a new portfolio he has been given after his sacking as Home Affairs Minister 18 months ago.

Following the swearing-in ceremony, Dr Mallia was asked whether he will be re-appointing his former chief of staff Silvio Scerri to a similar position in his new ministry, with the minister not ruling out the possibility by saying that he has not yet thought about appointing his closest officials. “But the probability is that there will be new people,” he said.

Silvio Scerri lost his position when Dr Mallia was sacked, and was seen by many as being an influential figure in the secretariat, although linked with a number of controversies during Dr Mallia's term in office.

When asked whether he feels vindicated to be re-appointed a Minister after he was sacked, Dr Mallia said “No, it’s just a matter of the Prime Minister deciding that my place is back in the executive”.

Asked whether he has learnt from his mistakes, Dr Mallia said that there is never any guarantee against errors. “What guarantee do you have that you will remain a journalist in the near future?”, he said.

He said that when one says “mistakes”, in his case they were not his own mistakes, but the mistakes of others which reflected on him. He had been dismissed after he refused to resign in the wake of a shooting incident involving his driver, which the government had initially attempted to cover up.

Dr Mallia reiterated that he “came into politics to serve” and he will continue building on the work of his predecessors to improve on Maltese people’s standard of living.

In the spirit of dialogue, the Minister said that he looks forward to working with the members of the opposition in his sector. When asked whether the opposition, who backed his sacking, would want to work with him, he replied, “Why not?”

“Ridicule should be left for the world of comedy”, not for decisions of the Prime Minister, Dr Mallia said when asked about the Opposition Leader’s description of his new appointment. These, in the end, can only be done by Dr Muscat and Dr Busuttil has no say in them, the Minister said.

Asked about the PM’s change of heart with regard to his services as minister, Dr Mallia replied that “The circumstances are completely different and once he took the decision [to sack me], as you know, I still continued to work. I met my constituents every week in different PL club houses to speak to them and help them however I can.

“I remained active because I believe that I was elected to serve my constituents,” Dr Mallia said.

The newly appointed Minister for Health, Chris Fearne, said that is work will follow what has been done in the past three years,

The Minister said that the main priority is for health services to remain free for all patients, “offering excellent and sustainable service.” He added that the vision is to make Malta a centre for medical excellence “by having the best possible infrastructure, by offering additional services and improving on what we have, and by having the best human resources and by constantly training our employees.”

Another priority is for Malta to be a centre for medical education both at an undergraduate and postgraduate level, for both the local and international communities “to literally make Malta an international centre for medical education.”

The third objective mentioned by the Minister was to make Malta a centre for medical research. “We are working with a number of large companies abroad to have pharmaceutical research in Malta.” This with the additional final goal of introducing personalized medicine in Malta.

The Minister said that hae and his predecessor Konrad Mizzi have worked together for the last two years. “Naturally there are things which he used to take care of and others which I used to take care of, but we have always been on the same wavelength so there are practically no things which were being done which I don’t know of.”

In terms of working together, Dr Mizzi is still a member of Cabinet and, according to Dr Fearne, he will always be there to discuss any problems which may arise. “We have always worked together over the last two years, we will continue working together in the coming two and, hopefully, in the following five years as well.”

The newly appointed Minister for the Environment, Jose Herrera, said that he is pleased that his previous secretariat has now been elevated to the level of ministry as it is a clear indication that his work as parliamentary secretary has paid off.

When asked when there will be a meeting with the eNGOs, Minister Herrera said that he gives them great importance and he will “definitely be meeting them very early on.”