Ambassador Emeritus Anthony De Bono has been honoured with Ġieħ San Ġiljan. Mayor Albert Buttigieg presented a medal, commemorative plaque and scroll to Mr De Bono, along with other residents of St Julian’s from the cultural, commercial, philanthropic and social fields, at a ceremony held in the ballroom of the Marriot Hotel in St Julian’s.
In a brief address, Mr Buttigieg urged active citizenship, quoting John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what the State can do for you, but what you can do for the State.” He thanked them all for their contribution to society and encouraged those present to be “builders of a better Malta”.
Mr De Bono, who has lived in St Julian’s for the past 40 years, had a long, distinguished career in the Public Service and in state-owned telecommunications, apart from holding important international and diplomatic posts.
For 12 years he was the Chief of Staff of three government ministers. Among his major achievements in this time were the development and modernisation of the national health system and the statutory institutionalisation of the Port Workers Pension retirement and License heritage schemes.
He was appointed CEO of Telemalta Corporation for 14 years from 1983 during which time he worked to modernise the country’s telecommunications. Malta was the first country in the world to have a 100% digital telephone system and in 1994 was selected as a role model for telecommunications development at a conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Both mobile communications and the internet were introduced in his time. Internationally, he was Chairman of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, for which he is now Perpetual Ambassador, and is Chairman of the European, Middle East and North Africa Chapter of the Telecommunication Executive Management Institute of Canada.
He was elected to a two-year term as President of the European Commission for Posts and Telecommunications, and chaired the largest telecoms industry lobby, the European Telecommunications Network Operators.
For his work in the telecommunications sphere and within the UN’s International Telecommunications Union, to which he was Malta’s special envoy for 15 years, Mr De Bono received an international recognition from the ITU in 2019 at San Anton Palace in the presence of President George Vella and President Emeritus Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici.
Apart from serving as consultant to various ministers, he was Deputy Chairman and Chairman of Maltapost and special emissary at various international conventions, before being appointed Malta’s Ambassador to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for three years.
A founder member of the Tumas Fenech Foundation for Education in Journalism, a major achievement was the setting up of the first BA course in Journalism. He has held many posts in the world of national and international sports. He currently chairs two private groups of companies with interests in telematics and subsidiaries across four continents.
The Ġieħ San Ġiljan event was presented by St Julian’s Deputy Mayor Clayton Luke Mula.