Sam Mifsud, of S. Mifsud and Sons Ltd, is widely expected to become the next MTA chairman.

It was Maltastar.com that first made his name public last week, although his name had been making the rounds in tourism circles for days before.

Sources in the industry told The Malta Independent on Sunday that Mr Mifsud, though young, is well-liked in the industry. Some, however, warned of a possible conflict of interest due to Mr Mifsud’s involvement in the industry. Others dismissed this fear.

Still other sources told this newspaper that, along with the choice of a new chairman, perhaps even more important is the choice of the new CEO, since the previous chairman, Romwald Lungaro Mifsud, had combined the two roles. A call for applications for a CEO was recently published and contacts are understood to be ongoing with some key operators in the industry.

The sources who spoke to this newspaper warned that a good CEO would be the one who gets to grips with what is going wrong at MTA, something the restructuring exercise does not seem to have changed much.