OPM shields Stagno Navarra as Air Malta employees’ anger reaches boiling point

The Office of the Prime Minister has strangely reversed a declaration made in Parliament by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana over a ‘new’ government job given to its chief propagandist Karl Stagno Navarra.

The change of line comes in view of growing anger being expressed among ‘redundant’ Air Malta employees who are claiming discrimination, The Shift News can reveal.

According to Minister Caruana, the former Nationalist propagandist who turned to Labour in 2013 was given a new job at government entity RSSL Ltd a few weeks ago. The move formed part of the Voluntary Transfer Employment Scheme (VETS) made available for extra Air Malta employees earlier this year.

On 27 June, Minister Caruana informed Parliament that Stagno Navarra was the only Air Malta employee with a definite contract who had already been transferred into a permanent government job.

According to Caruana, Stagno Navarra was transferred permanently onto the RSSL’s books and was assigned to the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) as communications chief.

However, following a request for his new contract by The Shift News through the Freedom of Information mechanism, the OPM, which is politically responsible for RSSL, is now stating that no contract has been signed and that Stagno Navarra is only working with the new company “on loan”.

“There is no engagement contract between RSSL and Karl Stagno Navarra. Mr Stagno Navarra has only been currently loaned from Air Malta to RSSL so as he can perform duties according to administration needs,” the OPM is now insisting, completely changing Minister Caruana’s declaration in Parliament.

Sources at Air Malta told The Shift that the OPM’s latest declaration is “difficult to understand” as Stagno Navarra’s contract with Air Malta was a three-year definite contract, and it had drawn to an end last month.

“It seems that either Minister Caruana or Robert Abela are not telling the truth. Stagno Navarra’s contract with Air Malta expired on 8 July and it does not make any sense that his job with the national airline was extended when he opted for VETS and asked to leave,” the sources said.

“This is probably a tactic being employed by the OPM to confuse things, as it knows that hundreds of other VETS applicants have uncertain futures and are very angry at Robert Abela and Clyde Caruana,” the sources insisted.

The Shift is informed that a similar Freedom of Information request was filed by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, which was told ‘no documentation exists’ – a line regularly used by the government to block public access to information.

While Stagno Navarra, who rarely made an appearance at his place of work at the national airline, was promptly accommodated by the government by transferring him to a cosy job a few metres away from Labour’s headquarters in Hamrun, hundreds of Air Malta employees have been told by their Chairman David Curmi that the VETS agreement they signed is “just a worthless piece of paper” and that the government does not want to honour it any longer.

The Shift has revealed that while before the election, 577 Air Malta employees, mostly from the ground handling section, agreed to leave the ailing airline in return for a permanent job with the government, with their exact take home pay by next August 11, the Finance Minister has had second thoughts and wants to rescind this agreement.

Instead, Caruana is negotiating with the General Workers Union to cancel the agreement and instead given a onetime golden handshake to the employees concerned in exchange of their redundancy from Air Malta.

Accusing the Minister and their union of a “betrayal”, the affected employees are also pointing fingers at blatant discrimination, citing the ‘privileged’ way Stagno Navarra has been treated by the Labour government.

They are demanding that the government keeps to its promise and transfer all VETS applicants onto permanent government books by August 11, as promised.

On his part, Minister Caruana is insisting on redundancies and threatened that he will shut Air Malta if the involved workers contemplate striking to reclaim their rights.

Air Malta is financially on the brink of collapse due to mismanagement over the past years.

The article was updated after The Shift was informed that the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation had filed a similar FOI request for the contract that was also denied.