Carmen Ciantar collecting business donations for Labour

Carmen Ciantar, the chief canvasser of former Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne, has been busy over the last weeks contacting businesses to lobby for massive donations to the Labour Party for Sunday’s fundraising telethon.

The veteran Labour activist, sacked last March from her lucrative €163,000 annual job as CEO of the Foundation for Medical Service (FMS), was lobbying businesses on behalf of PL CEO Leonid McKay to donate tens of thousands in cash donations for the Labour Party.

The Shift is informed that Ciantar, who focused her energy on Fearne for the past few years, is now helping the PL CEO to collect donations.

Despite her poor record at the FMS, with the Paola Hub being the most recent example, Family Affairs Minister Michael Falzon signed her up for a lucrative government consultancy contract last summer.

Yet sources said she has been lobbying Prime Minister Robert Abela for a new CEO position in government. Her recent commitment to lobbying her business connections for funds is intended to please the top echelons of the Labour Party as she seeks another CEO position.

Corporate owners who spoke to The Shift on condition of anonymity confirmed that Ciantar repeatedly contacted and pressured them over the last weeks to contribute to the PL’s coffers.

She told them she was helping McKay because he was new and still needed to learn how the party worked.

“We had to put our hands in our pockets and donate to Labour as usual. But we did not appreciate all this pestering from Ciantar. It verges on stalking,” a businessman said.

While both parties claim that they receive most of their funding from small contributions by party loyalists, this is far from the truth, as most of their finances come from big businesses, which fear retribution if they don’t give donations.

Carmen Ciantar has been on the government’s gravy train since 2013.

Originally a canvasser for disgraced former minister Konrad Mizzi, she was appointed CEO of ARMS in addition to other taxpayer-funded posts.

Before 2017, she joined the bandwagon of then-minister Chris Fearne, a rival of Mizzi in the Paola district.

While coordinating his campaign, she was awarded a €163,000 financial package as the CEO of the Foundation for Medical Services.

Under her leadership, the FMS suffered massive delays in health projects and significant budget overruns.

Ciantar’s relationship with Fearne soured after she unsuccessfully coordinated his Labour leadership campaign, which he lost to Robert Abela despite being the frontrunner.

Last March, after Fearne’s replacement at the Health Ministry and his arraignment in Court, Ciantar was sacked from her CEO post at the FMS.