Mr Charles Deguara
BA (Hons) Business Management

Mr Charles Deguara, born in Pieta' on 27 March 1959, received his secondary education at the Archbishop's Seminary, Floriana. After completing his sixth-form studies, he joined the Civil Service as a Clerk in 1977 and was posted at the Water Works Department. The following year he was selected to follow a full-time B.A. (Hons) Business Management course at the University of Malta. Following his graduation in 1983, Mr Deguara was appointed as an Administrative Officer within the same department. In 1986, following its hiving-off from the Public Works Department, he was appointed as Human Resources Manager at the newly set-up Division that catered for all personnel requirements of the 1,200 employees on the books of the W.W.D.

In 1990, Mr Deguara's appointment as Treasury Accounting Officer represented a major shift to the finance area. His new duties consisted mainly in the co-ordination and presentation of the annual departmental revenue, capital and recurrent budgets and the ongoing monitoring and control of the W.W.D. Votes as approved in the annual financial estimates. In this new role he gradually became acquainted with the rules and regulations related to the management of public finance, mainly the Financial Administration and Audit Act (1962) and the General Financial Regulations.

Two years after, with a view of consolidating his knowledge and competence in this particular area, Mr Deguara accepted a proposal to move over to the Budget Office within the Ministry of Finance. As a Recurrent Division desk-officer, he was responsible for the budgetary planning, monitoring and control of a number of Government Ministries. In 1996, he was appointed as Officer-in-Charge of the Expenditure Division, comprising both the Recurrent as well as the Capital Expenditure Sections. Reporting directly to the Director Budget Office, he thus became responsible for the day-to-day management of this Division whose activities culminated in the preparation, presentation and publication of the annual Financial Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates. In January 2000, he formed part of the first group of Public Officers who were appointed as Assistant Directors following a rigorous selection process.

Mr Deguara's appointment as Director, Policy and Planning at the Ministry for Home Affairs, in September 2000, marked another important milestone in his career within the Public Service. In this new role, his main responsibility was to provide executive support and policy advice to the Minister and the Permanent Secretary with a view to enable the effective planning and implementation, obviously within the framework of available resources, of those programmes and initiatives deemed necessary to attain the Ministry's principal objectives.

However, following Government's decision to set up new units within Ministries to drive forward the Public Service Change Programme, in April 2001 Mr Charles Deguara was appointed as Director (Office of Review) at the same Ministry. The main activities of this Office were focused on (i) monitoring of EU-related initiatives and commitments, (ii) co-ordinating improved service delivery projects and (iii) developing the Ministry’s international relations. Considering that during the negotiations phase the Home Affairs Ministry was designated as the Lead Ministry in respect of three crucial areas, namely Chapter 2 – Free Movement of Persons, Chapter 22 – Environment and Chapter 24 – Justice and Home Affairs, the first area of responsibility was quite extensive and challenging. He also served as the Ministry’s Senior Programming Officer in respect of the first projects implemented out of EU co-financing initiatives, including the major 2001 pre-accession project ‘Strengthening Malta’s capacity in Border Control and in the area of Asylum’ whose total estimated cost was 1.6 million euros. Through a high level of teamwork and a well-coordinated approach, all planned activities, including the training of practically all human resources engaged in the immigration and asylum functions as well as the purchase of the indicated equipment, particularly a state of the art forged documents identification system, were successfully implemented within the established timeframes and budgets.

In August 2002, Mr Deguara was appointed to the post of Director General, Land and Public Registry Division that comprises the Public Registry, the Land Registry and the Civil Registration Department (including the Passport Office). Being a predominantly services-oriented Division, one of his principal challenges was to further enhance the departments’ customer service delivery, particularly through the development of e-government initiatives (Certifikati-on-line projects was successfully launched in January 2003) and additional Quality Service Charters (Civil Status Certificates Issuance QSC was launched in March 2004). Moreover, in view of the planned Marriage Registry QSC, the Registry was re-located to more spacious and convenient offices where marriage applicants are given a better service whilst a new Marriage Hall at ground-floor level, thus eliminating all accessibility problems, was set up.

On the 25 th May 2004, Mr Deguara was appointed to his present post as Permanent Secretary at the Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs.

As regards hobbies and other interests, Mr Deguara is actively involved in the voluntary sector, particularly sports administration. In fact, since 1984 he has served on the Board (presently as President) of the Hibernians Basketball Club whose Ladies' senior team has dominated the local scene during this last decade; indeed boasting the largest number of players in the Senior National Team that won the gold medal during the last edition of the Small Nations Games held in Malta in 2003. His involvement in this particular sector is motivated mainly by a strong belief that promoting a sports culture, especially through active participation, is highly beneficial to the wholesome development, both physical as well as mental, of our youths. For the last thirteen years, Mr Deguara has also been an active member of the Christian Life Community - an international religious lay movement based on the charisma of St Ignatius of Loyola.

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