Dozens of family connections among Heritage Malta employees reignite accusations of ‘nepotism’

Heritage Malta has been accused of becoming “a den of nepotism” by insiders who pointed out that the CEO alone is related to at least five individuals employed with the cultural agency, while family connections by others in management and services continue to top the list.

CEO Noel Zammit is related to at least five individuals employed within the agency he oversees, including his wife Tonia Zammit, who was recently promoted to senior principal officer of the customer relations department, and his brother Philip Zammit, who works in food and beverage development as part of the agency’s ‘Taste History’ initiative.

“Heritage Malta recently held a Careers Week, which was a farce since there are no career paths provided to the majority of employees. This was an insult to most of us,” a source from Heritage Malta told The Shift, pointing towards the pattern of favourable promotions for people with family connections within the agency.

The Shift has confirmed at least 28 family connections across multiple departments, although the number is probably much higher. The Shift is only publishing those names that can be definitively verified. 

A senior manager in the human resources and visitors’ services department, Rachel Caruana, is also the partner of another manager in the maintenance and upkeep department, Oliver Spiteri. Her daughter, Shalona Caruana, was also brought in as a temporary contractor.

According to information available in the public domain, all three are from Żurrieq, which happens to be in culture minister Owen Bonnici’s electoral district.

The head of exhibitions and displays, Pierre Bonello, is married to one of the designers in the branding department, Josian Bonello.

A coordinator within the museums and sites department, Silvana Flask, is the mother of a front office clerk who was dispatched to the Paola region, Glenn Flask.

In Gozo, agriculture minister Anton Refalo’s son, Andre Refalo, was hired as a senior clerk at one of Heritage Malta’s sites, a region from which the minister’s family originates. Ironically, his father was exposed by The Shift as holding a cultural artefact in his garden – a protected early 19th-century stone marker – that was posted on social media by his son. 

The pattern holds across multiple departments, with cases ranging from people from different departments forming relationships to hiring family members into junior positions to more blatant examples, like a former senior curator handing over his position to his partner after being promoted himself.

Heritage Malta, which manages some of Malta’s most important historical sites, has faced multiple scandals over the years.

Just last month, The Shift revealed that Heritage Malta’s chairperson and Labour Party stalwart Mario Cutajar took leave of absence from his post to personally organise an exhibition commemorating the 105th anniversary of the Party.

The agency’s safekeeping practices also raised several red flags last year when Heritage Malta sought to conceal the theft of three valuable vases and a clock from one of its sites, the second theft of cultural heritage in as many months at the time.

The agency is also known for repeated irregularities in its public procurement processes, including a €45,000 anniversary party and a €1.2 million direct order to lease a warehouse with a litany of enforcement notices.

In 2023, after a string of politically embarrassing stories about the agency were published by The Shift, Nationalist Party MP Julie Zahra published an internal Heritage Malta circular stating that employees would face disciplinary proceedings for gross misconduct if they shared confidential information from the agency.

The circular specifies that ‘confidential information’ relates to “any and all information, and any and all records, in any form and of any kind, whether transmitted orally or in writing or read by eye or machinery, or in any other form, including but not limited to any relevant equipment or any part thereof, the agency’s operating methods, processes, plans, strategies, data, know-how, and any other material that the agency makes available or that is obtained by the employee.”