Disgraced Project Green boss spends €1 million in recruitment drive

Joseph Cuschieri, the disgraced former MFSA boss, put back on the government’s payroll as CEO of Project Green by Minister Miriam Dalli, returned to his notorious ‘old habits’, spending public funds left, right and centre, without any form of accountability.

The Shift is informed that since he took over the government’s greenwashing agency last January, Cuschieri has been on a recruitment drive, putting no less than 19 new managers on the agency’s payroll, primarily friends and acquaintances, and awarding them exorbitant salaries.

The 19 new managers receive salaries higher than those paid to the prime minister, averaging €56,000 annually.

According to information acquired through Freedom of Information requests, Cuschieri’s managers will cost taxpayers over a million a year in remuneration, including several perks. More are expected to be recruited in the coming weeks.

Apart from their already high basic salaries, most of Cuschieri’s recruits, some with very few years of experience, are receiving a raft of perks, including thousands in “responsibility allowances”, fuel and cars, “project allowances” and even a “warrant allowance” when the job necessitates such a qualification, such that of an architect.

The highest-paid of Cuschieri’s new managers is Beverly Cutajar, a friend of the CEO whose services he also used to hire at the Malta Financial Services Authority and the Malta Gaming Authority.

Cutajar also manages her private consultancy, Think Talent. She is also the Chair of the Malta Film Commission, which is associated with excessive spending sprees by its CEO, Johann Grech.

Cutajar is paid almost €80,000 annually through Cuschieri’s new job as Project Green’s Chief Officer for People and Culture.

Even Cuschieri’s new personal assistant, Roberta Pace, is a close friend of the disgraced CEO and was awarded a contract of over €50,000 as his aide.

A former employee of a small luxury hotel chain, Francoise Chetcuti, an acquaintance of Cuschieri, was given the post of Head of Stakeholder Management and put on a package of €61,458.

Officials working at Project Green who are not part of Cuschieri’s clique told The Shift that most new managers had no employees under their wing and spent hours away from their office daily.

“No one knows what they do and why we need them. We have a manager for every nook and hook, and more are coming,” sources told The Shift.

While the agency was set up to address widespread complaints about environmental degradation and its impact on quality of life, so far, Project Green has yet to implement a single significant project despite a budget of some €100 million a year.

The reappointment of Joseph Cuschieri to a government top post was highly criticised due to his recent past and his close connections to disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat’s circle, mostly former chief off staff Keith Schembri.

Cuschieri was given key government positions by Muscat and Schembri, in which he made a name for arrogance, abuse of funds and ethics.

While at the MFSA, Cuschieri was caught topping up his already generous financial package with perks and honoraria to which he was not entitled. He also repeatedly abused the procurement system, bypassing procedures to issue direct orders.

The same happened when he was heading the Malta Gaming Authority.

He was forced to resign from his role at the MFSA after being found guilty of breaching rules when he took a trip together with his legal counsel, Edwina Licari, to Las Vegas, paid by Yorgen Fenech – his friend accused of involvement in the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Despite this baggage, Minister Miriam Dalli decided to reappoint him to a top government post and give him the responsibility of spending millions of public funds.

Cuschieri had given Dalli a job way back when she was working at Labour’s TV station. The minister also gave Cuschieri’s daughter, Katrina, a consultancy job just a week after she returned from her studies abroad with no relevant work experience.

A Freedom of Information request filed by The Shift revealed that Miriam Dalli gave Katrina Cuschieri a €13,000 pay rise after only a year on the job, promoting her from grade 1 to grade 3, usually reserved for long-serving public servants.