Abela exempts Rosianne Cutajar from refund of phantom consultancy money

A few days after his latest U-turn when sacking Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo and ordering his wife Amanda Muscat to refund some €16,000 in extra payments she got from two fake consultancy contracts, Abela has contradicted himself again by exempting disgraced Labour MP Rosianne Cutajar from similar treatment.

Asked by PN MP Mark Anthony Sammut to state in parliament whether Rosianne Cutajar had refunded her €27,000 from a similar phantom consultancy job at the Institute of Tourism Studies, Abela said the former Qormi mayor did not need to refund any money.

“The National Audit Office (NAO) never recommended that the MP refund the money,” Abela said.

The NAO report, which in 2023 led Abela to sack Cutajar from the PL parliamentary group, had found that the former parliamentary secretary was employed on a fake contract issued by ITS CEO Pierre Fenech. The NAO concluded there was no evidence that she had ever done any work despite getting paid thousands.

The situation is similar to the Standards Commissioner’s report on Clayton Bartolo and Amanda Muscat.

Pierre Fenech, who is on two CEO contracts, one at the ITS and the other at the Mediterranean Conference Centre – earning himself the title of ‘Super CEO’ – had admitted that Cutajar’s contract was “an order from above”.

Describing Cutajar’s contract as “fraudulent” and “irregular”, the NAO also found that Cutajar lied in 2020 when submitting a declaration to parliament for income earned the previous year, failing to mention the “contrived” consultancy.

The NAO said Cutajar’s consultancy “breached regulations governing recruitment,” both for public sector employees and persons of trust.

In chats of conversations between Cutajar and her then-lover, Yorgen Fenech, Cutajar had told him that she would “pig out like the others did” (kulħadd jitħanzer), referring to her Labour MP colleagues.

Two weights, two measures

Abela’s latest defence of Cutajar’s fraudulent consultancy job continues to put him at loggerheads with his MPs for his inconsistency and lack of decision-making.

After spending weeks defending Clayton Bartolo and his wife, insisting that an apology from the former tourism minister was enough, Abela threw his colleague under the bus when the pressure to sack him and Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri increased.

The prime minister was also accused of not acting because he was personally compromised.

To justify his decision, he also ordered Amanda Muscat to return thousands paid irregularly, even though he gave her a 30% discount without any justification.

The prime minister is now refusing to apply the same yardstick with Cutajar, fearing a further rift with the internal faction of disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat.

After declaring in 2023 that Rosianne Cutajar would never return to Labour, Abela was forced to reverse his decision and accept Cutajar back into the fold a few weeks before last June’s MEP and local council elections.

Abela had insisted on a public apology, but Cutajar ignored him.

Despite Abela’s gesture, relations with Cutajar are still sour.