MP Rosianne Cutajar has resigned from the Labour Party’s parliamentary group and has gone independent, sparing herself the blushes of being forced to resign by her peers.
Cutajar was to be the subject of this evening’s meeting of the Labour Party’s Executive but she pre-empted the meeting by writing to Prime Minister Robert Abela to tender her resignation from the party.
Cutajar said she would remain an independent MP, just like the disgraced former minister Konrad Mizzi had done in 2020.
But Cutajar chose not to go down Mizzi’s route by exposing herself to a party vote.
Mizzi was voted out by the parliamentary group after refusing to resign when asked to do so by Abela. Cutajar instead resigned by letter.
Cutajar has been facing growing calls to step down since former Labour Party stalwart Mark Camilleri, whom Cutajar has sued for libel, published some 2,200 WhatsApp text messages between her and Yorgen Fenech detailing not only their amorous liaisons but a rot within the government where, according to Cutajar, “everyone is pigging out” and that she might as well do the same.
Those messages exposed how she intended to get herself a freeloading contract from Institute of Tourism Studies CEO Pierre Fenech.
The Shift then revealed how she had begun receiving her third salary from ITS a full three months before she told Yorgen Fenech she had decided to take on the consultancy.
The Shift acquired Cutajar’s contract with ITS through a Freedom of Information request the newsroom had filed.
The Labour Party on Monday evening published Cutajar’s correspondence to Abela, who insinuated last week that she must go by telling the press that “no one is bigger than the party”.
The Shift is informed that Cutajar had little other option than to tender her resignation following a Labour parliamentary group meeting last week in which she had been given an ultimatum to either resign or have the matter brought before the party’s executive scheduled for this evening.
In her resignation letter, Cutajar said she had been elected with 2,200 first-count votes – ironically, around the same number of WhatsApp messages that led to her downfall from the party.
Cutajar also said she had “paid the political price” for her Mdina property wheeling and dealing with Yorgen Fenech when she had been made to step down from her position as a parliamentary secretary.
It was, however, the taxpayer that paid her price: at least €30,000 for leaving office in disgrace, according to a terminal benefits scheme introduced for Cabinet in 2008, which was secretly raised twice by former prime minister Joseph Muscat before he stepped down.
Cutajar was entitled to be paid at least six months of her annual salary and allowances as terminal benefits.
That’s the first iced bun. Let’s wait and see what else will be offered.
Why only Rosianne Cutajar made to quit. Some ministers should also be asked to join Cutajar.
Will she be earning a parliamentary pension following the next election?
She’s been in Parliament since 2017, and MPs get parliamentary pension after 1 term of 5 years, if I’m not mistaken.
Fake it till you make it. In this case it was a bad decision to underestimate one’s opponent. The situation she is facing is her own doing its is useless to point fingers at others. Did she seriously think that the scandal she took part in had been forgotten by the public!!!!
She does not deserve to be paid this is stealing tax payer’s money. The day will come when the people will show that this unacceptable.
Make every vote count because some people just want to pig out!!!
Kollox marbut mal onoraja parlamentari kif ukoll mal pensjoni.
Xi hadd jghidlina huwa minnu li issa Rosianme tinghata pensjoni extra ta’ MP?
the question should be, is she entitled to it? after her behavior??? as this is not a behavior members of parliament should show….
Rosianne has been expelled not for pigging out but for having the naiveity to state the honest truth that “kullhadd qed jithanzer”.
I now come to her defence. She is so right to ask what has changed from February of last year when she was approved as a Labour Party general election candidate; the Prime Minister knew already no doubt what the chats with Yors said yet saw it convenient to approve her as a woman candidate that was a vote puller. She is no more a pig than so many other Labour parliamentarians and big heads who are as much a pig or even more but do not admit it. The only thing that has changed from before is that Robert and Labour are now panicking as a result of the more recent electoral surveys as that is too much of a barefaced admission for Gahan to fathom, used as they are to believe barefaced lies coming from Labour apologetics, including PBS
Waħda barra… issa jmiss il-kabinett kollu.
Who ends up worse off? The taxpayer. Time will tell how many iced buns she will receive in the future. Obviously funded by the taxpayer.
Clearly, all this hate against Rosianne is both unfounded and one-sided Nobody mentions her saintly attributes, such as those in common with Padre Pio. He too could be found at 2 places at once, Rosianne can work 3 jobs at once, conduct 2 (or more) personal relationships whilst also going to the gym and now also a pregnancy. She deserves to be beatified !
The ‘lucky three’ from Qormi. Cutajar, Fenech, Abela.
Watch: What do the people of Qormi think of the Rosianne Cutajar saga? (timesofmalta.com)
But Robert Abela was born in Sliema, grew up in Ghaxaq and Marsaskala. He only had a lawyers’ office in Qormi, no?