Borg Olivier’s blunder – he emailed the wrong Jason
The very confidential email that Paul Borg Olivier sent to government ministers asking for details on clients complaining to ministries, was mistakenly sent to the Labour secretary-general Jason Micallef instead of Jason Azzopardi, the parliamentary secretary, MaltaToday can confirm.
The PN secretary-general’s costly blunder revealed a top-secret discussion held within the party’s inner circle, on how to transfer confidential information about complainants to government ministries, to the Nationalist party in full defiance of data protection laws.
The information would later be used to tackle “disgruntled voters” before crucial elections.
Borg Olivier has defended his request simply by saying that the party had a “customer care unit set up, geared at channelling people to various ministers.”
But the former Valletta mayor failed to explain why the email he sent to ministers spelt out the specific personal data that ministries should pass on to the party.
The same email, circulated to the Prime Minister’s head of secretariat Edgar Galea-Curmi, ministers and PN officials, was also sent to party diehards Charles Demicoli and Mimcol’s Ivan Falzon, both renowned for ‘tackling’ disgruntled Nationalists before a general election.
Soon after noticing Borg Olivier’s blunder, Galea-Curmi initiated a damage-control exercise by replying back to all the email’s recipients not to share any data on “clients seeking ministries’ services” unless they have their consent.
“Every kind of consent has to be in writing and a copy of it should be kept in the client’s file. I demand of all colleagues in every ministry that this practice is applied scrupulously in every case.”
Later on that same day, Borg Olivier replied to Galea Curmi’s email saying: “I agree 100% with the position as explained (by Galea Curmi) and I confirm this has always been our idea.”
Now Labour party insiders are expressing serious concern that TV presenter Peppi Azzopardi will be organising a programme on the matter, in a perfect attempt at damage-control for Paul Borg Olivier’s massive cock-up.
Azzopardi, already considered to be too comfortable with the PN for Labour’s liking, is expected to reveal that even Labour had its own “customer-care division” when it was in government back in 1996.
Although deeply suspicious of Azzopardi, Labour has actually refused to publish details of the email erroneously mailed to Jason Micallef to score political points on the gaffe.
Writing in MaltaToday (see page 20), PN director of information Frank Psaila seemingly pre-empts Peppi Azzopardi’s line of thinking by accusing Labour of having had no qualms over exchanging sensitive data.
But he avoids debating the facts behind Borg Olivier’s infamous email, the demands if which would have constituted a criminal offence by exchanging personal data without the consent of the individuals concerned.
In next Friday’s programme Peppi Azzopardi will be inviting secretary-generals Jason Micallef and Paul Borg Olivier to debate the issue, but has avoided involving MaltaToday, the newspaper that broke the news.
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