A siege mentality has been imposed at Heritage Malta after Chief Executive Officer Noel Zammit issued an internal memo to all employees warning them of disciplinary measures for gross misconduct if they share information from within the agency with any third parties.

The Opposition’s culture shadow minister Julie Zahra on Monday published the circular, which informed employees that in terms of their contracts, they are “obliged” to keep any confidential information to themselves and to not pass any such information on to anyone else.

The internal memo adds, “Not only that but you are also obliged to not communicate, indicate or suggest to third parties that such confidential information exists.”

The circular specifies that ‘confidential information’ relates to “any and all information, and any and all records, in any form and of any kind, whether transmitted orally or in writing or read by eye or machinery, or in any other form, including but not limited to any relevant equipment or any part thereof, the Agency’s operating methods, processes, plans, strategies, data, know-how, and any other material that the Agency makes available or that is obtained by the employee.”

In a statement on Monday afternoon, Zahra asked what, exactly, Culture Minister Owen Bonnici, whose blessing she said the memo had, has to hide.

“The Nationalist Party asks what the need was for this type of memo. Is it because he [Bonnici] knows things are happening that he does not want the people to find out about or is it because he is afraid that he will be caught in another scandal?” Zahra questioned.

She referred to three exclusive stories published in recent months by The Shift as the possible motivation.

She said, “He was caught fixing a contract for a restaurant in Palazzo Vilhena in Mdina, after he allowed his colleague the Minister Anton Refalo to keep a historical artefact at his poolside, and after he failed to take immediate action in favour of a victim of sex abuse at the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra and after allowing developments to take place against the advice of the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage, among others.

“Like the rest of his friends in the party and government of Robert Abela,” Zahra said. “Owen Bonnici keeps thinking he can do what he wants, even by twisting facts about others.

“Because he knows he is doing wrong, he is now threatening the workers at the entities that fall under his remit because there are those who, in the face of all this, cannot bear not to speak.”