Labour candidate Katya De Giovanni, currently serving as chairperson of the Social Care Standards Authority (SCSA), hired her 74-year-old father as a full time ‘junior lawyer’ with the agency just weeks after he was sacked from the education ministry for wrongdoing, according to documents seen by The Shift.
Anthony De Giovanni, a former art teacher and civil servant until his retirement in 2008, made headlines in 2020 when he was dismissed from his job as consultant to the education ministry for using state equipment to tamper with the Wikipedia page of the Council of Europe’s Special Rapporteur Pieter Omtzigt.
De Giovanni, who also served as a Labour mayor in Fgura, only gained his law degree in 2016, having begun his studies after he retired from the civil service in 2008. He’s also well-known on the comments boards of online news sites as a fervent Labour supporter.
The pensioner was appointed to the position of ‘junior lawyer’ at the SCSA just weeks after his dismissal from the education ministry. The role nets him thousands of taxpayers’ euros a year, on top of the state pension he receives as a former director at the education ministry.
SCSA chair and Labour candidate Katya De Giovanni’s social media post marking her father Anthony De Giovanni’s 74th birthday
Sources close to the authority told The Shift that employees at the SCSA were surprised that the position of junior lawyer, issued through a public call, was filled by the pensioner-father of the same Authority’s chairperson.
The Shift is informed that this recruitment exercise, considered by many within the organisation to be ‘abusive’ and ‘improper’, was reported to both Minister Michael Falzon, under whose ministry the Authority fell at the time of the recruitment, and to Michael Farrugia, the minister currently responsible for the agency.
The source said that their appeal for an investigation into the case has been ignored. Questions sent by The Shift to Minister Farrugia and his communications coordinator, Charmaine Craus, several weeks ago have also been ignored.
The Shift asked Farrugia to confirm the recruitment of the 74-year-old as a junior lawyer, to state who were the members of the selection board and to divulge whether an investigation has been conducted into possible wrongdoing by SCSA chairperson De Giovanni.
We also asked Farrugia whether he was aware that De Giovanni senior had been sacked from the position of consultant at the education ministry just before he was hired by the SCSA.
Misuse of government computer equipment
In January 2020, when he was serving as a government consultant to former Education Minister Owen Bonnici, De Giovanni was caught using a government PC to change the Wikipedia profile of Dutch MEP Pieter Omtzigt.
As Special Rapporteur for the Council of Europe, Omtzigt’s report was critical to ensuring the Maltese government committed to a public inquiry into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. It was only after he imposed a three-month deadline that Joseph Muscat finally bowed to pressure after two years of resisting its launch.
In comments to the media after his sacking, De Giovanni admitted to carrying out what he termed as “legitimate editing” using public infrastructure.
The De Giovannis
Anthony De Giovanni is an old-school Labour stalwart – his candidate daughter referred to him as “suldat ta l-azzar” in a Facebook post – and one of the main organisers of the erstwhile 1 May ‘Battle of Flowers’ parade.
He also helped organise many of Labour’s mass events, particularly during the periods when the party was led by Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and Alfred Sant.
For 11 years, between 1993 and 2004, he served as Labour’s mayor of Fgura.
His daughter, Katya, a lecturer in family studies at the University of Malta, was appointed SCSA chair after having been recruited through the Labour Party’s Lead programme, intended to nurture women politicians.
Katya is married to engineer Kevin Chircop, who was appointed by the Labour government as CEO of the Malta Air Traffic Service – another government agency.
There is no Anthony De Giovanni in the Lawyers Register.
To work as a lawyer one must have a warrant , or not now since the Min. Edward Zammit Lewis , pushed the change in the Lawyers Law that a person that does not work in court does not need a warrant. Is Anthony Degiovanni one of them? A legal service provider without a warrant?
Try not to show your ignorance on the subject with so much conviction please.
Daqshekk mejjet bil guh lintrid tibqa terda anki fi xjuhitek
Do you have a Warrant or not?
GREEDY CORRUPT BASTARDS
Seems to be a sincere autobiographical note.
Il-hnizrijiet ma jonqsu qatt. Trasparenza? Meritokrazija? My aso
Qabel taghmel gidizzju iccekkja s-sors. Basic media literacy.
I’m not sure what this unintelligible gobbledegook is intended to mean, but I’ll repeat, just for good measure, all the facts in our article are correct. Basic media literacy might have educated you in the dangers of denying that which is true – you might have read of Oscar Wilde or Jeffrey Archer, for example, and decided, on balance, it might not be wise to jump all over the comments on this article making a multitude of false denials.
Perhaps someone tampered with the “sors,” something you can relate to and are most familiar with ! How about enlightening us by giving an explanation or your own version of facts.
Its all in the family.
Yours?
Kollha immbroljuni!!!!!!
At times I feel sad about how much my life would have been so much lucrative and easier if I simply was an immoral opportunistic Labourite. However, although imperfect I don’t know how I would live with myself. Not many are of the same opinion.
Your wish exposes you for what you really are!
Allura dawn kolla GAHAN?
Scraping the bottom of the trash can!!!
can these bigots go any lower??
it seems yes because we’ve been hearing this sort of rubbish being thrown at us every day for the past nine years!
il veru poplu Gahan!!
How right you are. Why would people stoop so low and simply invent lies to denigrate others just because they have different political opinions to theirs.
The facts in our article are all correct. The only people stooping low in this sorry tale are a money-hungry, pseudo-socialist ‘junior lawyer’ and his daughter, abusing her position as social care regulator to employ her own disgraced pensioner father instead of giving a deserving young person the chance to begin a career.
The whole political structure is so incestuous! And, time after time, the impunity which promotes Government representatives for doing wrong is everywhere. This can’t be the only case of ‘do wrong, don’t worry, we’ll look after you’!
Maybe your own personal experience of erstwhile times? Not my personal experience. I never asked any favours and always worked hard for a living always paying my taxes.
“You never asked for any favours”? They must have just landed on your lap, then. A 74-year old employed as a ‘junior lawyer’ by a government agency headed by your Labour candidate daughter after you were forced out because you still can’t understand that what you did was wrong when using State infrastructure to tamper with the Wikipedia page of the Special Rapporteur of the Council of Europe Pieter Omtzigt, whose only fault was seeking justice for the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia on your government’s watch – the same government that conveniently keeps employing you despite your evident lack of understanding of basic concepts.
A lot to smile about! Rather a lot to be ashamed of….
Agreed. Lies are shameful
Lies are indeed shameful, which is why it’s astonishing you have chosen to draw attention to yourself in this way. The facts in our article are correct, the criticism you attract as a result is justified, and the shame is all yours.
Taghna ikoll, all in the family. A thank you from this government for his efforts trolling the internet media defending the indefenceable and now allegedly using different names. Way to go guys.
Why do you troll John? Expecting a return?
I only comment to what I read. I am not affiliated or a member of any political party in Malta, not like you. And while we are at it, I was never caught trolling while at work and being paid by the taxpayer.
Mhux ta’ b’xejn imbagħad jivvutaw favur il-korrotti fil-Parlament għax kollha imbruljuni.
Hux! Xi raguni trid issib biex tikkonsla meta Tara l-istramaghoranza ta voti f’kull elezzjoni!
X’ma jimpjegakx il-gvern. Mur aqbad ktieb li jghallmek x’jigifieri tahdem ghall-istat. L-Istat mhuwiex il-Partit Laburista.
il BELLO UOMO
Jekk ma tafx Taljan ikteb bil-lingwi li tahseb li taf.
Ma tisthix
In January 2020, when he was serving as a government consultant to former Education Minister Owen Bonnici, De Giovanni was caught using a government PC to change the Wikipedia profile of Dutch MEP Pieter Omtzigt.
Qatta mejtin bil-guh – even at this age he is still a greedy bastard.
Appart li linkorretezzi fid- dettalji jekk ghandek il-hila ghid li dak li jien ktibt dwarOmtzigt ma kienx veru!
An open admission of tampering with the Wikipedia page of the Special Rapporteur of the Council of Europe working for justice by forcing the government to establish a public inquiry into the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. You did this using State infrastructure – a citizen, let alone ‘a junior lawyer’, would have the basic sense and common decency to understand all that’s wrong with that. Yet here you are, defending your action to manipulate information and attack a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and you think you deserve yet another position in a government agency. But of course, you couldn’t make sense of how all that you did was wrong, because the government enabled you to return to the fold given a position in an agency run by your daughter, who also happens to be a candidate for the Labour Party in the next election.
This is simply a very shallow spin, lowest level of journalism if it can even be considered such.it is absolutely not true that I was hired by member of my family and my recruitment was perfectly regular The dire ageism expressed in the piece is an insult to all elder citizens.
As we say clearly in our article, the manner in which you were recruited by the taxpayer-funded authority your daughter heads was seen as abusive and improper even by your own colleagues, who reported it to minister Michael Farrugia and requested an investigation into why a disgraced pensioner was selected to fill the position of ‘junior lawyer’ – the type of post that’s usually filled by young professionals just starting out on their careers.
How telling that you had no qualms about grabbing this opportunity for yourself – concurrently robbing some young person of the chance to begin a career in the civil service and earn a salary through what could potentially have been a lifetime of service to the country.
How telling that you have no shame in siphoning off even more public funds to fill your own pockets, even after having disgraced yourself so pathetically in your previous grace-and-favour position, and even though you already take home a pension paid from state funds.
So, to clarify: yes, you were hired by your daughter, the regulator, via a process that your own colleagues considered abusive. The fact that a call for applications was issued is irrelevant; it’s the choice that was made after the applications came in – to hire you – that’s the problem.
Talk about pseudo socialists! What a disgrace.