PBS directors are now objecting to John Bundy, but they are the ones who approved his appointment

So now it turns out that John Bundy, the bottom-feeder who this government saw fit to install as chief executive officer of Public Broadcasting Services Ltd even though the biggest thing he had ever run was his grocery shopping-list, has gone behind the backs of the company’s own procurement officer and the board of directors and signed a half-a-million-euro deal for the lease of 14 cars for eight years from Burmarrad Commercials.

Rather than having the car-leasing requirements discussed and approved by the board of directors, and a public call for tenders made, with the offers put before the board, Bundy used the system that applies only for minor purchases – obtaining quotations from three different suppliers. Heightening suspicions of wrong-doing and possible kickbacks, he didn’t even obtain those three quotations through the company’s procurement officer, but instead went through its advertising manager, with whom Bundy appears to have a special relationship.

When the government appointed Bundy to the post last year, I had ripped the decision to shreds, pointing out that the role and purpose of a CEO, particularly in a significant company like Public Broadcasting Services Ltd, requires years of experience and training. Bundy, who is barely literate and whose entire work history consists of prancing about on television or radio making an ass of himself, was (and still is) manifestly unfit.

I won’t go into those arguments again here. They should be self-evident. But apparently not, because I received a slew of the usual excuses, in his defence, which reminded me that Malta is the place where people think that anybody can do any job and the only reason people get to have and do X job is because they have contacts and not because they are actually fit to do it.

We are now seeing a reprise of all this with the crazy belief that the best person to run a major political party and be leader of the Opposition is somebody who has never been involved in politics at all and does not even have a seat in parliament because he has never stood for election.

In John Bundy’s case, the Times of Malta has reported that the board of directors at Public Broadcasting Services wants him replaced, failing which they will resign themselves.

Well, what can I say, except that they have brought all this on themselves through their own dereliction of duty last year in failing to protect the company from this disgraceful appointment, as was their duty as directors. The government cannot appoint the CEO without the approval, by secret vote, of the directors. And the directors who are complaining now about John Bundy, as though he was imposed on them and they had nothing to do with it, approved his appointment. This is what I had written about the subject last year.

John Bundy was appointed CEO of Public Broadcasting Services Ltd last year. Here he is seen with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat during a Labour Party electoral rally in 2013.