On Saturday 29 March, former Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia surprised the country with his sudden resignation from his post, and in the process he catalysed the Prime Minister into an early reshuffle of the Cabinet that same day.

In an interview with this newspaper, Dr Farrugia is, however, perplexed how an email he sent to the whole of the Maltese media just minutes after handing in his resignation at the Office of the Prime Minister early that morning never reached the intended recipients.

In fact, the media only learned of Dr Farrugia’s resignation that day after his partner, fellow Labour MP Marlene Farrugia, published a photograph of the letter in question on her Facebook page after believing that the press had already received a copy by email.

While relaying the chronology of events of 29 March, Dr Farrugia says, “The difficulty is that I cannot understand where this email went.”

Dr Farrugia is certain that the email, sent from his official car from his tablet device just outside the Office of the Prime Minister, as he has done several times over the last year, was in fact sent off. But should an investigation into the final fate of that email be held, it could very well open up a Pandora’s Box.

The former Minister had used his official gov.mt email account to send his resignation letter to the media, but that letter, for one reason or another, never reached its intended recipients.

IT experts have confirmed with this newspaper that emails pushed from a device over a government’s network could, in fact, be stopped dead in its tracks and deleted from the back-end of the infrastructure. However, they also warned that for such a thing to take place the person’s email account needs to be monitored closely.

Asked about this particular prospect yesterday, and whether he felt his or other email accounts were being monitored, Dr Farrugia said, “I don’t know what to say. I have no idea what happened to the email after it left my outbox.”

But then again the notion that his email could have been tampered with is not all that far-fetched given past accusations levelled by members of the Labour Party when in Opposition, and others.

In recent years, under the previous administration, the Labour opposition had accused MITA, the government’s IT agency, of tampering with MPs’ emails. There have also been several accusations of phone tapping.

“I had a sleepless night that Friday. I was thinking and rethinking the possibilities. But obviously I was in it 100% for the Ministry of Health and nothing else.  I had laid the groundwork for the next three years, it is all there and it is ready to be implemented but I was not going to be given the opportunity to implement the plan, which had taken me a whole year of working seven days a week.

“On Saturday morning I woke up at 4.30, and as Marlene had to go to her clinic in Birgu very early in the morning, I told her I would drive her there when my driver arrived.

“Before we left I told her that I was decided, that I was going to quit on a matter of principle.

“I had a constructive exchange with two ministry officials as soon as I arrived at the ministry that morning. The letter was typed on official paper, sealed and stamped with my official stamp.

“The day before, I had also prepared my office for an imminent handover.

“I walked to Castile, and asked if the Office of the Prime Minister was open at that time.  The soldier on duty said there was a messenger there. On my request he accompanied me all along, I found the messenger, handed him the letter and told him: ‘This is for the Prime Minister’.  But the messenger said that he’ll be here at 2.30pm at which point I asked him to place a call to the Prime Minister to inform him about the letter.

“As we walked back to the lift I decided to send an SMS to the Prime Minister telling him that I had left an important letter addressed to him at his office. He replied by asking who I had left it with and I gave him the name of the messenger.” 

After that, Dr Farrugia says he proceeded to his car, picked up his tablet with the email ready to be sent, sent the email and remained in the car and told his driver to not even switch on the engine until the email had been safely sent off.

“I wanted to make it public immediately because I was decided,” he says.

Dr Farrugia says he waited to ensure the email had left his tablet and phoned his public relations officer to ask if he had received the email with his resignation letter.

“My PR person had not, however, received the email yet, but I was informed that since the email had a number of addresses and since it was sent from a tablet it could take longer.”

That email, however, never reached its intended recipients despite the fact that he had followed the exact same procedure from the same spot countless times over the last year without a problem.  It was only on that particular day,” he observes, “that there was a technological fly in the ointment.”

Dr Farrugia explained that he then phoned Dr Marlene Farrugia and informed her that he had resigned and that he had sent an email with the letter to his own ministry’s communications office and to the press.

“I even sent a photo of the resignation letter to Marlene, after she again asked me if I had sent it to the media. When I answered in the affirmative, she asked me if she could put it up on her Facebook page. And since I had already informed the media, and therefore assumed it was already public, I agreed.”

Despite all that has transpired, Dr Farrugia says, “I am very loyal to the Prime Minister. I have done my best. I understand that he has the prerogative when it comes to his Cabinet and that he knows best.”

Asked about plans for the future, Dr Farrugia replied that he was currently resting, coming to terms with his experience, reflecting and spending quality time with his family. As regards his future Dr Farrugia also reiterated that dealing with the present certainly was the priority but he was looking toward the future with a more than positive mindset.