The Principal Permanent Secretary has, through the Department of Information, issued yet another right of reply, this time in response to The Malta Independent on Sunday’s Editorial last weekend. 

The editorial, titled ‘Institutions, institutions’ was published last Sunday and threw a lens on the country’s institutions, particularly in the scenario where both political parties are accusing each other of hijacking those same institutions. 

The full right of reply to the editorial can be found below: 

It is probably beyond anyone’s comprehension how criticism of the goings-on in the Public Administration is termed as an exercise in governance but criticism of any institution of oversight promptly becomes undermining of the institution.

Your editorial titled “Institutions, institutions” is paradoxal in much the same vein. 

Truth be told the Ombudsman never criticised the spending on persons of trust (as reported in your editorial) but the concept of hiring them itself was called into question. It was revealed (contrary to what your editorial reported) that in actual fact the Ombudsman himself, by his own admission, hires a person of trust and that is not the only institution of oversight which employs persons of trust despite their open criticism of the age-old system which has been in force well before previous administrations. 

One expects that institutions of oversight such as the Office of the Ombudsman adopt clear and transparent procedures as these institutions rightly expect from the entities under their scrutiny. In essence, the proposals put forward by the Public Administration address this anomalous situation. It is simply an exercise in good governance, and this should be a legitimate concern for all.