The OPM’s head of customer care and the deputy head of communications have both resigned, Times of Malta reports.

Sandro Craus has served as the head of the customer care unit since the role was created in 2013.

He told Times of Malta that he is planning to take one month of “gardening leave” but has not yet decided where he is moving to.

Craus, who is the mayor of Rabat, made headlines in 2019 when Daphne Caruana Galizia murder middleman Melvin Theuma revealed that he had been given a phantom government job after a meeting with the OPM official.

In the meantime, deputy communications chief Nigel Vella has also stepped down.

The newspaper reported that he is eyeing a job at Malta Enterprise, which is headed by Joseph Muscat’s former spokesman, Kurt Farrugia.

Vella served as spokesperson for the Labour Party between 2013 and 2017, before joining the OPM’s communications unit. He told Times of Malta he had decided to move on but insisted that his relationship with the Labour administration is “as good as it has always been.”