The Commissioner for Simplification and Reduction of Bureaucracy, Mosta MP Anthony Agius Decelis, says nothing wrong was done when he sent a recommendation to Transport Minister Joe Mizzi for a friend of his to be transferred to a government department.

The “friend,” who is not being named by this paper, works at MEPA but applied for the post of Senior Technical Officer with the Beach Cleansing Unit in May last year and was given an acknowledgement by the respective department within the Infrastructure and Transport Minister.

Sources explained that the acknowledgement letter then ended up in the possession of Mr Agius Decelis’, who forwarded it to Transport Minister Joe Mizzi. The government MP used his Commissioner for Simplification rubberstamp on a business card accompanying the letter. Furthermore, he added a handwritten note saying: “Ministru Mizzi, dan habib kbir tieghi.” (Minister Mizzi, this is a good friend of mine).

The letter was, however, incorrectly addressed, the sources explained, and it ended up at the wrong government department instead of on Minister Mizzi’s desk.  It was subsequently sent back. This paper is informed that, up till now, the man has not been given the requested post.

When contacted, Mr Agius Decelis confirmed that he had sent the letter and that he had written the note to Joe Mizzi. He said that the man had applied for the job transfer but was ineligible because applicants had to be public service employees and he works at the planning authority. “He was frustrated at the fact that he could not apply for the job transfer and he asked me to help him. So I sent his application as a sort of recommendation to Joe Mizzi.” Mr Agius Decelis implied that there was nothing wrong and pointed out that the transfer was not accepted.

It is a widely known fact that MPs from both sides of the house help their constituents, including by helping them with transfers and jobs.  Mr Agius Decelis is known to be one of the most helpful MPs. However, questions have been raised over the fact that he used his position as Commissioner for Simplification to make his recommendation to the responsible minister, rather than his role as an MP.