Phantom consultancy at Tourism Ministry raises doubts on transparency

Aqra dan l-artiklu bil-Malti.

The Ministry for Tourism, led by Minister Clayton Bartolo, has denied the existence of an undisclosed consultant within its ranks, despite official documentation suggesting otherwise, raising doubts on transparency and accountability within the ministry.

A primary school assistant head teacher has been pictured prominently in several photos with Bartolo, has an official ministry email address and is listed as a ministry consultant in official documents, but denies working there.

The anomaly comes amid other recent instances of ‘phantom’ consultancies in government institutions, costing taxpayers thousands of euros.

Sylvana Mifsud, the individual in question, is also named on a registration document for the Water Services Corporation (WSC) as both a board member of the WSC and a consultant at the Tourism Ministry and lists her as recently as July 2023, as “a Ministry consultant part-time at the Ministry for Tourism.”

Mifsud is also the secretary of the Tourism Ministry’s digital economy think tank and has been featured in photographs alongside Bartolo since 2020.

Despite this, Bartolo told The Shift, “She never worked with the ministry or its secretariat”.

Last month, Nationalist Party MP Darren Carabott asked Bartolo in a parliamentary question for information on consultancies held by Mifsud, but none were mentioned.

Questioned directly by The Shift whether the ministry employed any consultants not mentioned on the list provided to parliament, Bartolo said, “To the best of my knowledge, she has no relation to the Ministry for Tourism,” stating “Had there been a consultancy, I would have included it in my answer to the parliamentary question.”

He added she was never a consultant within the ministry or its agencies or part of the ministry secretariat.

Contacted on her official ministry email, Mifsud replied from that same email stating that it “had been set up by mistake and since then has never been used from my end,” despite the fact she must have been logged in to read and reply to the email.

In her prompt answer to The Shift’s questions on the ‘unused’ and ‘mistakenly created’ address, she claimed she is not “employed as a consultant within the Tourism Minister’s Secretariat nor held the role of a consultant at the tourism ministry.”

It is unclear whether Mifsud is employed in any other role within the ministry.

The Shift called the Tourism Ministry reception, asking for Mifsud. While they did not have her listed as working at the ministry, they claimed “she is around.”

The situation casts doubts on transparency and accountability at the Tourism Ministry, raising questions on how many other non-consultants may be opaquely employed within government authorities.

Only last month, The Shift reported how a consultancy contract employing former Labour MP Rosianne Cutajar at the Institute for Tourism Studies, under the remit of the tourism ministry, was hidden from its secretariat.