Opinion: Miriam Dalli is to blame

For the umpteenth time, Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi managed to wriggle out of investigating. This time, it was Labour’s failed MEP candidate, former Project Green CEO and current Infrastructure Malta CEO Steve Ellul’s turn.

Singer Ira Losco was paid thousands of taxpayers’ money to upload posts that included images of her own children, and she tagged the personal pages of Steve Ellul and Minister Miriam Dalli.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child specifically obliges State parties to “take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of exploitation while in the care of parent(s)”.

Instead of protecting those children, Ellul used public funds to gain personal exposure for himself and the minister.

Pamela Cann Rodgers, Project Green Head of Communications, asked Losco to tag Ellul’s and Dalli’s personal pages.

The Standards Commissioner wrote to Minister Dalli and emphasised that the practice of tagging personal pages in publicly funded official posts was “ethically dubious”.

Ellul knew this.  He knew this was not only ethically dubious but also abusive.  Other Labour MEP candidates were livid that Ellul was getting free publicity through Losco’s posts using public money.

When the Commissioner wrote to Ellul to provide documents, Ellul redacted the original emails. Ellul tried to hide the facts from the Commissioner, which infuriated the Commissioner who said: “This office does not accept redactions in the evidence provided to it”.

The Commissioner should have taken steps against Ellul for attempting to pervert the course of justice. But the Commissioner didn’t. His excuse was that he still found out who was negotiating with Losco.

Losco provided the same emails that Ellul did but without the redactions.  Bizarrely, the Commissioner stated in his report, “Therefore, the undersigned did not feel the need to take further action regarding these emails”.

Losco testified truthfully and openly.  She provided all the documents she was asked for, including voice messages. Losco told the Commissioner that Cann Rodgers contacted her and asked her to act as a brand ambassador for Project Green.

She testified under oath that Cann Rodgers sent her a message instructing her to tag Ellul’s and Dalli’s personal pages.  “It is important that both minister and CEO are tagged,” Cann Rodgers messaged on 19 April 2023.

When the Commissioner called Cann Rodgers to testify, she came up with all sorts of excuses.  Tagging Ellul’s and Dalli’s personal pages didn’t incur additional costs to the public purse, she claimed, and she only asked Losco to tag them to increase reach.

She testified that Losco’s “collaboration” was approved by Steve Ellul but the tagging was “her personal idea”.

Minister Dalli knew that her personal page was being tagged.  The practice had been highlighted by The Shift.  Dalli took no action to stop the abuse.  Losco stopped tagging only after The Shift contacted her.

She testified before the Commissioner that “no, no one told me” when she was asked whether anybody asked her to stop tagging Dalli and Ellul.

Cann Rodgers claimed she never spoke to Minister Dalli about Losco. Yet Minister Dalli bent over backwards to defend her. While completely disassociating herself from the whole scheme, Dalli stuck her neck out for Cann Rodgers, doubling down on the excuses.

“Project Green Communications head justified the tagging by claiming she wanted to increase the reach… This reach was going to be far greater if Ira Losco tagged me too,” Dalli insisted, boasting that she has 66,000 Facebook followers and 21,000 Instagram followers, like an excitable teenager.

“Tagging my personal page was not intended to promote me,” Dalli declared.  How did she know if she wasn’t involved in the decision? How would she know what Cann Rodgers intended if she had never spoken to her?

“I should also point out that the allocated budget for these adverts remained the same (€5,000) and therefore tagging my personal page didn’t bear any impact on public resources”.

Dalli had understood nothing. The Commissioner felt obliged to point out that “Miriam Dalli defended the practice of tagging”.  He lectured Dalli on the inappropriateness of using public funds for personal publicity: “This tagging remains wrong even if it does not incur additional costs”.

He rubbished the ridiculous claim that tagging personal pages was required to increase reach.  He pointed out the bleeding obvious: “The minister could still upload a link herself on her personal page to broadcast it to her followers. It isn’t necessary to tag the minister”.

Despite finding it an “ethically dubious” and “wrong” practice, the Commissioner still let everybody off the hook.

He claimed he couldn’t investigate Steve Ellul because he was not a “person of trust”. So what is he? Ellul was not appointed CEO through a call for applications.  He was directly appointed by Dalli. But the Commissioner exonerated Dalli: “The undersigned finds no guilt on the part of the minister and declares this case closed”.

Dalli is responsible for Steve Ellul. She appointed him CEO. There was no board of directors or chairman at Project Green.  Ellul answered directly to her. After messing up so catastrophically at Project Green, a post for which he was absolutely inept, he was promoted to Infrastructure Malta CEO, a post for which he is even less suitable.

Dalli appointed Joseph Cuschieri in his stead at Project Green – the man found guilty of breaching MFSA guidelines and ECB code of conduct and forced out in disgrace.

He’s been found guilty of illegally sacking an employee and causing him and his family undue hardship. Yet Miriam Dalli keeps him on. You don’t need to look far to realise where the problem lies.