Former Gozo minister Justyne Caruana was handed a €10,000 direct order by the government just months after she resigned following Times of Malta reports about her husband’s friendship with alleged Daphne Caruana Galizia murder accomplice Yorgen Fenech.

A notice on Friday’s The Malta Government Gazette showed that the Labour MP was awarded the €10,000 direct order for “legal consultancy”.

No further details on what this role involved were provided.

Although she resigned as minister, Caruana had said that reports her husband, former assistance commissioner Silvio Valletta, had gone abroad on holiday with Fenech were extraneous to her.

She had stepped down in January, just a week after being re-appointed when Prime Minister Robert Abela took over office.

Contacted about the direct order, Water Services Corporation CEO Ivan Falzon told Times of Malta that Caruana “is also an attorney” who provided “specific legal services to the corporation as required from time to time”. He did not specify what the services are.

“I don’t think her being an ex-minister excludes her from providing professional services,” Falzon said in reply to whether he believed the decision was appropriate.

This is not the first time the Labour MP has been awarded contracts by the government since stepping down.

In July, it emerged in parliament that she had been awarded a one-year €48,000 contract by direct order to provide legal services to the Lands Authority.

Caruana bagged that direct order on June 9, a month after she got the Water Services Corporation assignment.

The government’s decision to award rafts of direct orders in recent years has come under scrutiny by both Malta’s own Standards Commissioner as well as the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission.

During Caruana’s time as Gozo minister, the ministry would often award direct orders for procurement of goods and services despite EU rules dictating that such a method should only be used as a last resort.

In 2018 alone, 146 direct orders were issued for goods and services, at an expense exceeding €7.4 million over 12 months.