Opinion: Justyne’s rewards

If you employed a top executive officer in your company and had to sack her because she was stealing tens of thousands of euro from your company to give to her boyfriend, would you re-employ her? That’s exactly what Labour did with Justyne Caruana.

She robbed the state of tens of thousands of euro to pay her boyfriend.  Instead of demanding that she pay that money back, Prime Minister Robert Abela gave Caruana not just one government job but four. Labour is paying her €180,000 a year.

She’s contracted to work 120 hours a week for those €180,000.  And she can still carry on with her private practice.

Caruana had been forced to resign twice from her ministerial role.  First, she failed to disclose her husband’s close friendship with Yorgen Fenech, accused of serious crimes, and still participated in discussions and decisions taken at cabinet level about him.

When she was given a second chance, she quickly blew it.  Almost immediately after being re-appointed, she paid her boyfriend tens of thousands of euro for a job he was entirely incapable of doing – writing up a report on the National School of Sport. In fact, someone else wrote it for him.

What’s even more shocking is that when she was caught and investigated by the Standards commissioner she lied under oath.

She claimed, under oath, that she wasn’t the one to recruit Danjel Bogdanovic but was advised to do so by two other persons, both of whom testified they were never consulted about her boyfriend’s appointment, and one even pointed out his utter unsuitability for the role. She then claimed that there were other consultants with whom she discussed her boyfriend’s recruitment but, when challenged, couldn’t name a single one.

Caruana testified that her boyfriend wrote a detailed report when she knew full well he hadn’t.  One of her consultants, Paul Debattista, had written it for him, and she was copied on all the emails and correspondence.

She got Debattista and her permanent secretary, Frank Fabri, to lie repeatedly under oath to cover up her wrongdoing.  Debattista falsely claimed that he had recommended to his boss that she should recruit her boyfriend to write the report. Despite writing the report himself, Debattista falsely claimed that Bogdanovic had written it.

Frank Fabri falsely stated that Bogdanovic performed very senior roles when he knew he hadn’t and couldn’t because he lacked the skills.  He wouldn’t reveal to whom Bogdanovic was accountable. Fabri’s testimony was deemed “vague and lacking details” and was labelled “not credible” by the Standards Commissioner.

The four of them lied under oath.  They claimed there was only a hard copy of the actual report in order to conceal the identity of the true author, which a soft copy would have revealed. Debattista couldn’t “remember” who passed on the report to him even though he’d written it himself. He even lied that Bogdanovic had received no help writing the report.

Bogdanovic, too, claimed he’d written that report himself but had no clue what was in it. He didn’t know which authorities were quoted in the report. When repeatedly challenged about his dubious authorship claims, he insisted, “I don’t know what to say to convince you, but I wrote that report”.

Yet he couldn’t even name what software he used.  He claimed he only had a hard copy and that he lost the USB stick on which he’d saved the report.

The Standards Commissioner concluded that both Bogdanovic and Debattista bore false witness and that Fabri was not credible.

Worst of all, even Justyne Caruana lied to cover up her wrongdoing. She obstructed the course of justice with her false testimony. The Commissioner concluded that not only did she breach ethics but that her actions could “outright possibly constitute a crime”.

Instead of expressing regret, Caruana took legal action challenging the constitutional validity of the law to evade justice.

That 89-page report about Caruana was damning.  It exposed her devious dishonesty, underhand machinations to cover up wrongdoing, outright lies, misappropriation of funds and possible criminal behaviour.

Instead of facing prosecution Caruana has been rewarded four times over by Robert Abela. She’s been made a legal tax consultant on a part-time basis and paid €78,000 out of our money.  Is that fair? Does that strike you as true justice?  Is that rewarding hard work (nippremjaw il-bżuilija)?

Labour knows perfectly well that this is plain wrong – and tried to hide it.  Caruana was given that direct contract in July 2024, but Labour only published it in the Government Gazette two days after Christmas.  Robert Abela was hoping nobody would notice, that everybody would be too busy Christmas shopping or too drunk.

That’s not Abela’s first gift to Caruana. It’s the fourth. The Shift revealed that she’d already been appointed legal officer at the Victims Support Agency and paid €40,000. She also received another €28,539 in termination benefits following her first resignation.

She’s also the Lands Authority’s lawyer 20 hours per week.  And for another 20 hours she gets to serve as an advisor to the health minister. Now, Labour has given her another €78,000 while still allowing her to pursue her private legal practice.

Where is Labour’s justice? Caruana was gifted four different positions.  For three of those four positions, nobody was allowed to compete.  No open calls were issued.  Everybody else, as qualified, or even better qualified, was excluded.

They were given no chance. Labour hand-picked Caruana to give her €180,000 of our money after she’d already misappropriated tens of thousands for her boyfriend.

Caruana has proved to be dishonest, unreliable, untrustworthy and devious. But Robert Abela keeps rewarding her for it – and there lies the real problem.

Despite all the revelations, despite the Standards Commissioner’s report highlighting Caruana’s potential criminal behaviour, Abela not only gave Caruana a lucrative direct order on top of three other government jobs but publicly called for Caruana’s return to the political arena.

“You still have a lot to give”, Robert Abela told her. Probably he meant ‘you still have a lot to take, so here’s another €78,000’. That’s not just shocking abuse of power; it’s glaring injustice and perverted morality.

What’s even more depressing is that half of Gozo would vote for her if she contested the general elections tomorrow. And probably half of Malta would still vote for Abela.