The Education Ministry has been accused of “flagrantly breaching” the autonomy of Malta’s National Book Council, in a strongly worded social media post from its chairman, Mark Camilleri.

Popular Maltese authors Alex Vella Gera and Wayne Flask rushed to the defence of Camilleri, who flagged political manoeuvring within the Ministry over a push for new legislation to give the NBC greater autonomy.

Camilleri claimed that the Ministry froze the “NBC’s money and issued an order that states that procedures on NBC budgets have to be absorbed by the ministry” immediately after a confrontational meeting between Bartolo and himself.

“This is very odd behaviour, indeed. I discussed my intention to push for the book council to have its own piece of law – an Act of Parliament – rather than simple subsidiary legislation, and this was followed by the Ministry announcing that the council’s accounting would be taken over by the Ministry itself. This is not conducive to independence and autonomy,” Camilleri said.

“In such conditions, my position would no longer be tenable because the consequences of these decisions will impact NBC’s operations, even threaten work and the exports.”

“I assure our stakeholders that these bureaucrats are being dishonest since the minister has no respect for the NBC and its decisions, he will have to show that respect to the congress,” he continued.

The Ministry has denied claims that it has frozen the NBC’s funds.

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