Malta Council for Science and Technology chairman puts personal friend on Council payroll in ‘position of trust’

Humbert Mozzi and his Maltese wife, Donna nee Sant, daughter of Leli and Doreen Sant.
Humbert Mozzi and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando became good friends after meeting through their wives, Carmen and Donna, who used to work together.

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and his current girlfriend Lara Boffa, who he put on the state payroll as his personal assistant/PRO at the Malta Council for Science and Technology

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando with his second wife Carmen Ciantar, through whom he got to know Humbert and Donna Mozzi

If you look at the list of officials and senior staff on the Malta Council for Science and Technology’s website, you will notice something very peculiar.

The Council has, inexplicably, a ‘China Liaison Officer’. Why would it need one?

This China Liaison Officer is called Humbert Mozzi, and I can reveal that he is a long-standing personal friend of the chairman, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. His wife, Donna Mozzi, used to work with Pullicino Orlando’s then companion, later short-lived wife, Carmen Camilleri Ciantar at the Midi apartments sales office.

They were frequently seen out on the town together as a foursome.

So it comes as no surprise to find that the post was created especially for Humbert Mozzi and that – it now emerges through a question put to the Minister of Education in parliament by Opposition spokesman Mario Demarco – he was engaged on a ‘position of trust’ basis. See the list here: 14942-2

That means no interviews, no normal selection process, and no scrutiny – ‘position of trust’ is a way of putting friends on the state payroll.

The Opposition should ask another three specific questions in parliament now.

1. Why does the Malta Council for Science and Technology need a China Liaison Officer, particularly when it has no liaison officers for any other country?

2. How is Humbert Mozzi qualified to liaison on China/science matters (he is a British-Italian lawyer), and what sort of liaison is he doing?

3. How long have Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Humbert Mozzi been friends, and why did the chairman feel obliged to put his friend on the state payroll?