An angry government claimed yesterday that the personal attacks unleashed against Gordon Cordina had led to his abrupt resignation from the post of Director General at the National Statistics Office.

According to Maltastar.com last night, the resignation letter will not be made public but the shock resignation announcement, which came when the country’s top brass was all in St John’s for the consecration of Archbishop Cremona, was not completely unexpected.

Sources close to Mr Cordina said he took up the job to do what he is an expert at – statistics – but he felt he had become a political punch bag. Others were heard observing this lynching could be linked to his taking a pro-EU stand at the time of the referendum and speaking at a public meeting.

In the past weeks, Mr Cordina became the subject of public controversy and media scrutiny following a series of revisions of Malta’s economic performance over the past months, which seemed to have ended up portraying the immediate past as better than thought and the recent past not as good as it was thought to be.

The Labour Party had commissioned a “technical report” on these changes and Mr Cordina had promised an NSO reaction by tomorrow. But following his resignation, the 40-page report was simply posted on the NSO website.

Below the pure statistical level, however, it is understood that Mr Cordina felt that the media scrutiny he was subjected to was in no way justifiable.

Attention was drawn to an article written by Joe Sammut in l-orizzont on 15 January in which Mr Sammut gave details of the various properties owned by Mr Cordina and linked that to his previous salary as a consultant to various ministries and a lectureship at the university.

But unbeknown to Mr Sammut, at least according to people close to Mr Cordina, there was a personal and family reason why Mr Cordina bought a second property, “and anyway,” said the sources, “anybody should be able to do what he wants with the money he earns.”

Mr Sammut had further written that while Mr Cordina had forgone quite a nice package by accepting to head NSO, two of his former collaborators at the Central Bank had taken up part-time lectureships at the university and had also set up a consultancy company, E-Cubed Consultants Limited, whose secretary was none other than Mr Cordina’s wife.

While a government statement condemned the personal attacks Mr Cordina suffered and blamed them for his resignation, and while government sources insisted that Mr Cordina was in no way pushed to resign, Maltastar.com announced that Labour leader Alfred Sant and deputy leader Charles Mangion are expected to comment on Mr Cordina’s resignation in their Sunday morning speeches today.

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