IM drops qualification requirements for top €110,000 job

Senior officials at Infrastructure Malta (IM), the government’s roads agency, are outraged by actions taken by top management to assign a €110,000 job promotion to one of CEO Steve Ellul’s closest colleagues.

In an unprecedented move, an internal announcement for the vacancy of Finance Executive Director at IM—essentially the second-highest position after the CEO—was re-published. Notably, this revised announcement eliminated all academic qualification requirements that were initially published for the role.

In July, IM announced an internal job opening for the position of Executive Director of Finance, offering a financial package of over €110,000 per year. The vacancy was open to all employees, including those seconded from other government organisations to IM. The announcement outlined the required qualifications for this senior role, which included a Master’s degree in finance, accounting, business administration, or risk management, along with five years of experience in a similar managerial position.

For some reason, no one was selected.

A few weeks later, ERL (Engineering Resources Limited), another government agency, reissued the same vacancy. This agency supplies former Enemalta employees to IM, including the manager whom Ellul wants to appoint to the new lucrative position.

This time, the call for the position of Executive Director of Finance at Infrastructure Malta was opened to all managerial officers at ERL, including the one who is currently seconded to IM. However, this new call notably lacked any academic requirements or qualifications, such as the master’s degree that was specified in the first, unsuccessful call for the same position.

Ironically, other job vacancies issued by IM for much lower positions require a master ‘s-level academic qualification.

Asked to explain the removal of the academic qualification requirements in the second call for Executive Director of Finance, Steve Ellul, the CEO of the roads agency, refused to respond.

Officials who spoke to The Shift indicated that everyone at the agency is aware that the lucrative position is set aside for a specific manager. This manager has been approving most of the multi-million Euro direct orders issued by Steve Ellul over the past year.

The Shift has received the name and current position of the person involved in this pre-arranged promotion. When asked to confirm if the same person would be the new Executive Director, Ellull declined to respond.

IM has been undergoing turmoil over the past year, especially since Ellul took over from Ivan Falzon as the head of the organization. The former Labour MEP candidate lacks experience in the sector and was appointed explicitly by Prime Minister Robert Abela after failing to secure a seat in Brussels.