The Malta Financial Services Authority will not be taking any remedial action on the conditions of its General Counsel Edwina Licari’s €120,000-a-year indefinite employment contract.
Despite the several irregularities in her recruitment process found by a recently published internal investigation, the MFSA said it will not not be taking any corrective measures.
The MFSA was forced to publish the inquiry’s report after keeping it under lock and key for three years.
The investigation into the pair’s trip to Las Vegas with and on the tab of Yorgen Fenech only saw the light of day after a recent freedom of information decision in The Shift’s favour.
It revealed. among other things, how former MFSA boss Joseph Cuschieri pulled strings and bent rules to not only recruit Licari as the MFSA’s top legal advisor but to also put her on an indefinite contract of around €120,000 a year.
The internal investigation found Cuschieri pulled out all the stops to bring his former Malta Gaming Authority colleague on board, including changing her contract from the three-year term as had been advertised to an indefinite one.
When contacted, the MFSA said it would not be taking any remedial action on the investigation’s findings that Licari’s recruitment process had been highly compromised.
Without delving into the inquiry’s conclusions, the MFSA said that Licari has been engaged on an indefinite contract and that, as such, it has no intention of changing her employment conditions.
“Dr Edwina Licari was employed on an indefinite contract in line with the contracts of other senior management officials at the MFSA at the time. The MFSA deems that no further action is required,” a spokesperson told The Shift.
The investigation concluded that Licari, who worked alongside Cuschieri at the Malta Gaming Authority, had been engaged on an indefinite contract although the vacancy had been advertised as coming with a three-year definite contract.
Despite a directive issued by the Office of the Prime Minister’s human resources authority – PAHRO, which has since been renamed to the People and Standards Division – that instructed the MFSA to recruit senior personnel only on definite contracts, Cuschieri had human resources place Licari on an indefinite contract.
The investigation also found that, in addition to personally interviewing Licari and ensuring she was the only one of three eligible applicants to have sat for an interview, Cuschieri also set the contract’s terms and conditions with higher allowances than those usually afforded to new employees.
Despite the conclusions, the board cleared Licari of any wrongdoing and instead found Cuschieri, who resigned after the report’s publication, had abused his powers.
When will Minister Clyde Caruana start to call these one by one and put them in their right senses and then follow the path of a bankrupt institution?
Start cutting salaries of these blood suckers, by 50% for starters. That will bring in the money for the nurses and doctors and teachers.
Shameful decision.
Just how many rules have to be broken by the MFSA to appoint its general counsel for it to admit that it made a mistake?
Likewise how can Dr.Licari in all good conscience, as a fully qualified lawyer, continue her role knowing her appointment was as a result of rules being broken or bent?
It is no surprise that the MFSA seems incapable of bringing prosecutions when its general counsel’s position is so contentious.
Mfsa prosecuting? Loool :)))
The acting head of MFSA Michelle Mizzi Buontempo is refusing to take the appropriate action against her collague Edwina Licari. They take action against business people and investors but they deem themselves above the law, with no ethics at all!
A broken Authority, as if it was possible to break anymore.A private club full of crooks and leeches with no backbone. They are there to maintain the facade of financial propriety to keep us from another Grey listing which cannot be that far away. Full of no hopers jockeying to steal even more from the taxpayer in fraudulent salaries and “perks”
Do like they say but not as they do as their behaviour and example is horrendous. What hypocritical standards.
But they have no money for the nurses..
Nurses don’t make profits, hence no interest.
Malta is all about money, no matter what. Simple as that.
Why is the Minister for Finance Approving all this waste of public funds!
Why doesn’t HR take action? Or is she busy promoting her cousin and boy friend?
The main issue here seems that she was given an indefinite instead of a definite contract. These are normal matters in employment discussions: the candidate is good but asks for an indefinite contract: no big deal. In any case there is a limit beyond which an employer can’t offer a definite contract but needs not to renew or else to engage indefinitely
Kemm ihobba lil Edwina eh. Il kunjatu meta JAGHMEL ikla fil palazz ta SAN ANTON tkun mistiedna EDWINA? Tidher li ta gewwa SEW.