Labour MP quietly appointed to AUM’s Board of Trustees

Labour MP Chris Agius was quietly appointed to the American University of Malta’s Board of Trustees as an official representative of the Maltese government shortly after Prime Minister Robert Abela snubbed him for a role in Cabinet, The Shift has learned.

Agius, a veteran Labour MP first elected to Parliament in 1996, was a member of the Cabinet in the disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s administration from 2013 to 2020.

After Robert Abela was elected as Muscat’s successor, Agius was relegated to the role of a backbencher prior to his appointment at the American University of Malta (AUM) in October 2022.

He was also appointed Chair of Yachting Malta Ltd, a public-private partnership between the government and the Royal Malta Yacht Club.

A search for public announcements from AUM and the Maltese government regarding Agius’ appointment to AUM’s Board did not yield any results, with just one singular reference on AUM’s website noting Agius’ status as a board member. He is the only Maltese individual present on the Board.

The secretive process by which Agius was appointed to the role was almost identical to that used to appoint the previous government representative on the Board, former Allied Newspapers managing director Adrian Hillman.

Hillman’s involvement only became public in 2019, two years after Muscat had personally handpicked him for the role – all while Hillman was still under criminal investigation for his involvement in the Progress Press scandal.

Both during his time as parliamentary secretary and afterwards, Agius has been highly supportive of AUM, despite the educational institution’s obvious financial and operational problems.

During a heated Parliamentary debate in 2018, Agius sang AUM’s praises, claiming that, before AUM established its presence in Bormla, “nobody wanted to have anything to do with Bormla or even visit the town, but it has now become an attraction”.

Just last month, AUM’s rector, Victoria Fontan, resigned from her position after less than six months in charge, citing the need to “move on” after spearheading the relocation of a group of American University of Afghanistan students who fled the Taliban’s clutches and are now studying in Malta.

Although The Shift is informed that a new rector is in Malta and is currently taking over, AUM has not responded to questions about the individual’s name or qualifications.

AUM also did not respond to questions about the university’s total number of students, which has consistently fallen far short of the thousands of students the university was supposed to attract. According to sources consulted by this newsroom, the current number of students is around 80.  Thirty of those form part of the cohort that relocated from Afghanistan.

The scandal-ridden university was gifted a sweetheart land swap deal by Prime Minister Robert Abela in 2022, who gave the university’s owners the right to purchase roughly 31,500 sqm of prime real estate at Smart City for just €0.47c per square metre in exchange for the public land it was initially given at Żonqor Point.

Despite these generous terms, virtually nothing has happened since, with no purchase agreements announced and no reported activity on the plot of land given to AUM’s owners in Smart City.