Probe confirms family hiring at Gozo Hospital, clears minister despite gaps in investigation

A probe by the Standards Commissioner has confirmed that Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela’s nephew and his girlfriend Anastasia Cassar were hired at the Gozo General Hospital via a ministry-contracted private agency, corroborating The Shift’s reporting, but concluded there was no evidence of nepotism.

The Commissioner’s investigation, conducted following a complaint by ADPD deputy chairperson Carmel Cacopardo, confirmed that George Abela, the minister’s nephew and son of his private secretary Mariella Abela, was engaged through contractor Signal 8, a private firm supplying human resources to the hospital under a government contract.

It also confirmed that his girlfriend, Cassar, the daughter of another member of the minister’s private secretariat, was similarly recruited through the same agency and placed at the same hospital.

Despite confirming these facts in their entirety, the Commissioner concluded that neither the minister nor his private secretary intervened to facilitate the recruitment, relying in part on declarations made by the minister himself.

However, the report reveals that the central figures in the alleged nepotism case, Mariella Abela (the minister’s sister-in-law), George Abela and Anastasia Cassar, were not interviewed during the probe.

Instead, the investigation relied primarily on testimony from Signal 8 owner, Jovan Grech, and the company’s HR manager, Kim Grech.

According to Grech, no one from the ministry contacted him regarding the minister’s nephew. He stated that George Abela himself approached him about job opportunities at the Gozo hospital, and after confirming that he met the required qualifications, his details were passed on to the hospital, which proceeded with the recruitment.

Grech also admitted that Abela later contacted him again to ask whether a job could be found for his girlfriend.

Anastasia Cassar was subsequently placed on the payroll after what he described as a final green light from the hospital.

Signal 8’s HR Manager, Kim Grech, confirmed that both individuals were recruited following approval by the hospital, noting that the Health Ministry was the client in such arrangements.

When asked whether there had been any formal public call for the posts, the HR manager confirmed there had been none, describing the recruitment process as an “open call”, largely “communicated through word of mouth”.

While clearing the minister of wrongdoing, the Commissioner nonetheless raised concerns about the system being used, noting that recruitment through private agencies bypasses standard public service procedures, even though those employed were ultimately paid from public funds.

He warned that such practices were not necessarily in line with public service recruitment rules and described the system as problematic.

The case forms part of a broader pattern repeatedly reported by The Shift, in which private contractors engaged by government ministries are used to channel individuals into publicly funded roles while circumventing established recruitment procedures for public sector employees.

In July 2025, The Shift revealed how George Abela had been employed as a clerk at Gozo General Hospital through Signal 8, triggering concern among public sector workers in Gozo and prompting scrutiny of the ministry’s recruitment practices.

At the time, Minister Abela, who is also Gozitan, denied any wrongdoing and dismissed the allegations as part of a coordinated campaign targeting his family, insisting that the ministry does not select or assign agency employees and that recruitment is carried out by contractors based on qualifications and operational needs.

While his claims were contradicted by Signal 8 officials, as it now emerges that the final say on recruitment still rests with Gozo Hospital, the Minister had declined to confirm whether his private secretary had played any role in her son’s engagement.

Sources close to the matter had indicated that Mariella Abela, a Labour councillor and a politically influential figure within the ministry, had recommended her son for the post. She was among the first appointments made to the minister’s secretariat following his rise to government.

The controversy is one of several involving members of the minister’s family.

In May 2025, his brother Ino Abela was awarded a €42,000 direct order from the Malta Food Agency to transport vegetables from Gozo to Malta, while another brother, Christian Abela, was seconded from the Gozo Channel to the Gozo Ministry.

Similar concerns have emerged in other ministries. A comparable case involved Minister Miriam Dalli, in which a close associate was engaged at Wasteserv through the same type of private staffing arrangements, further fuelling criticism over the use of such mechanisms.

Despite the Commissioner’s conclusion that no nepotism occurred in the recruitment of services at the health ministry for Jo Etienne Abela’s family members, key questions remain unanswered, including how the minister’s nephew became aware of the vacancy and whether any informal influence played a role.

The failure to interview those involved, combined with the reliance on word-of-mouth recruitment and private intermediaries, continues to raise concerns about transparency, meritocracy and the use of public funds in government hiring practices.