Nationalist Party secretary-general Joe Saliba has confirmed that Labour’s latest recruit to its stables, management consultant Silvio Debono, had been part of a consultancy cooperative which concocted the management revamp at Media.Link, the party’s company.
The former Xandir Malta news reporter has been drafted into Labour’s ranks with a regular newspaper analysis slot on One TV every Sunday.
Last Sunday, Silvio Debono attracted particular attention for his tirade against MaltaToday’s monthly survey, which revealed a slight 0.4% advantage for the Nationalist Party after months at a low ebb of popularity.
Labour had been leading the MaltaToday polls since May, but a poor performance by Opposition Leader Alfred Sant at a Birzebbugia rally on Independence Day broke the party’s momentum.
Joe Saliba told MaltaToday he had contracted the Outlook cooperative to draft an analysis of workflow at the Media.Link company. “Silvio Debono was one of them,” Saliba said of the Outlook consultants.
Their management prognosis had set off a spate of departures from the PN soon after.
Debono is now a director of Idea Management Consulting Services. Questions sent to Debono asking him which local councils he has been offering his services to at present, were unanswered by the time of going to print.
Debono has also been responsible for the restructuring of the former Super One TV and aiding Labour’s image. His latest foray is his weekly newspaper analysis on One TV, where he last lashed out at the independent press for hitting out at Labour. His hysterical performance was believed to be remiss even by party members, after hitting out at MaltaToday for its survey.
Earlier on in the week, a high-ranking Labour official threatened MaltaToday editor Saviour Balzan he would publish allegations of a ‘deal’ between PN secretary general Joe Saliba and Mediatoday Managing director Roger de Giorgio if the survey would have been published. Both de Giorgio and Balzan denies that an agreement ever existed.