Former parliamentary secretary Deborah Schembri has been given a €56,000 job as a consultant at Identity Malta, in addition to a €126,000 direct order from the planning watchdog and another at the Lands Authority.
The allocations were made after last year’s general election, when Dr Schembri failed to be re-elected to Parliament on the Labour ticket.
Details on consultancy jobs awarded by the Office of the Prime Minister were tabled in Parliament in reply to a question by Opposition MP Jason Azzopardi.
It transpired that 14 consultants had been engaged by entities falling under the OPM’s direct responsibility. The consultants cost taxpayers €423,000, the highest paid being Dr Schembri, who received €56,000 in connection with citizenship unit legal services for Identity Malta.
The OPM specified that she had been engaged after the June 3 election.
The former junior minister was also engaged by the Planning Authority, a State entity she was politically responsible for until she lost her parliamentary seat.
Her engagement dates to August last year, when she was engaged as a legal consultant to the authority’s executive council regarding the technical aspects of implementing the function of data protection within the PA.
The consultants cost taxpayers €423,000, Dr Schembri being the highest paid
She received €126,000 for her services.
At the Lands Authority, set up under her watch as parliamentary secretary, Dr Schembri was given a direct order to provide legal services following the departure of the authority’s lawyers last summer.
She was, therefore, awarded a total of €182,000 in consultancies and a direct order in under a year.
The information given in Parliament also showed that former tourism minister Edward Zammit Lewis, now an MP, was awarded a €26,000 consultancy in connection with reforms at Identity Malta.
At that point, the Lands Authority had already engaged him at a fee of €24,600 to serve as its legal representative in court.
Both appointments were made after the last election.
The list of consultants also include former Allied Newspapers managing director Adrian Hillman, who was put on the State payroll to advise on strategic public relations and communications. Mr Hillman received €48,000 for his services to the Malta Gaming Authority.
Mr Hillman is the subject of magisterial inquiries into claims of kickbacks and money-laundering activities allegedly involving him and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri.
Two years ago, Mr Hillman was put on forced leave and later resigned from all positions within the Allied Group after it emerged, first as reported by assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and then in the Panama Papers leaks, that he owned a secret company in the British Virgin Islands.
Mr Hillman has denied any wrongdoing.