“Is this a closed chapter for Rosianne Cutajar, will she contest a general election again with Labour,” Robert Abela was asked soon after Cutajar resigned from Labour’s parliamentary group. “A candidature with the Labour Party I am excluding from now,” he declared categorically. That was just eight months ago.
“Nobody should pay a perpetual penalty,” the same Abela announced last week, “I do not exclude that her situation should be reconsidered”. Even the reporters in front of him couldn’t believe their ears. “One minute, in what sense? Elaborate,” Times of Malta’s Mark Laurence Zammit blurted out.
“If you ask me whether Rosianne Cutajar should pay a perpetual price for her misdeeds, I would say that there are many PN MPs who did worse than her,” Abela replied.
Rotten Robert is on a mission to rehabilitate Cutajar because there are worse MPs.
“The standards in public life have risen,” Abela bragged last April. It seems those standards have now fallen so low you’ll have to dredge the gutter to find them.
Abela justified his latest U-turn by bizarrely pointing to Rosianne’s “good behaviour” and “the passage of time” – a full eight months – for his change of heart. Abela regrets kicking her out. Her sentence was too harsh, he argued.
“This is capital punishment, Rosianne Cutajar has been given capital punishment and she has carried her capital punishment for a number of months, a number of years. I would be too cruel not to reconsider her situation, this person who paid an ultra-capital punishment, I call it.”
“Let us be realistic – she was publicly butchered by a person who is ultra callous,” Abela accused. You’d think he was talking about Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Cutajar wasn’t butchered, she didn’t receive a death sentence as Abela suggests. More to the point, what “good behaviour” is Abela referring to?
Cutajar hasn’t paid the price for her bad behaviour. Barely six weeks ago, a damning NAO report revealed more of Cutajar’s obscenities. Her ITS job was “fraudulent” and “irregular”. The ITS board didn’t even know she’d been recruited. Her contract was backdated so she could earn thousands more undeservedly. The NAO found practically no evidence she had done any work at all. Thank God for that because the NAO also found she didn’t have the competence.
The country is still reeling from Cutajar’s shamelessness exposed in that report. We’re all shocked. Only Abela isn’t, probably because he knew all along. “She paid a heavy price,” Abela bluffed. She hasn’t. No further action was taken against her. She’s not facing prosecution. Neither has she paid the price for failing to declare her income from her fake ITS consultancy. The NAO found Cutajar declared €74,000 in her 2020 asset declaration. In fact, she earned €88,000, slyly concealing €14,000 and her ITS consultancy.
That wasn’t the first time. She’d already been found guilty of breaching ethics for failing to declare €46,500 she made off the Mdina property sale to Yorgen Fenech. She claimed the money wasn’t for her.
The standards commissioner didn’t believe her. Nor did anybody else. The seller categorically declared he paid Cutajar €46,500 and another €46,500 to her associate, Charles Farrugia, it-Tikka. When asked to pay the money back after the sale fell through, Farrugia stated Cutajar couldn’t pay back her share because she’d spent it on a house.
Cutajar didn’t just take the money without declaring it, she also lied under oath to the commissioner. She got it-Tikka to write a statement claiming he’d taken all the money. Since then, more of Cutajar’s transgressions have been exposed. She hasn’t paid for those.
Rosianne Cutajar hasn’t paid the price for her bad behaviour- Kevin Cassar
Abela spared her the worst sanctions when she was found guilty of serious ethics breaches by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.
Cutajar received €9,000 from Fenech before travelling to Strasbourg to lobby for a reference to Fenech’s secret company in Dubai 17 Black to be dropped from a draft resolution. She spoke in the assembly to downplay the allegations of corruption surrounding 17 Black and government corruption. She failed to disclose her relationship with Fenech.
Cutajar knew Fenech owned 17 Black. She knew about the links with Konrad Mizzi’s and Keith Schembri’s secret Panama companies. The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly was disgusted at Cutajar and voted overwhelmingly to condemn her. But they couldn’t apply any sanctions because the devious Abela had cynically removed her from the assembly before the decision was reached, undermining justice and saving her skin. So much for paying the price.
Abela argues he should reconsider bringing her back because Nationalist MPs have done worse. No Nationalist MP has been lambasted by the Council of Europe for being a paid advocate of 17 Black owner, Fenech. No Nationalist MP was roundly condemned by two different standards commissioners and the NAO.
When Standards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi confirmed Cutajar had indeed got a €27,000 ITS consultancy, which she failed to declare, Cutajar tried to deceive the public, hinting that she had been exonerated. She wasn’t. The commissioner didn’t investigate because the case was time-barred. He issued a statement condemning “selective, wrong or deceitful” interpretations of his decisions.
When the NAO found she had done no work at all, she arrogantly replied that that was the NAO’s opinion.
The NAO doesn’t do opinion – it bases its report on solid facts and evidence.
Rosianne is rotten but not half as rotten as Abela.
“You have PN MPs who did worse than her and are frontline in the upcoming election campaign,” he accused. This is Abela’s distorted logic – there are worse MPs, so it’s OK to bring Rosianne back.
Abela accused Nationalist MPs in public jobs of failing to turn up for work. Abela isn’t just rotten, he’s daftly shooting himself in the foot.
Who’s responsible for ensuring government employees turn up for work? It’s Abela. He should ensure taxpayers get their money’s worth.
Abela claims to know Nationalist MPs are abusing without mentioning a single one. Yet, he’s done nothing about it, for years. That’s either because his claims are false or because it’s politically expedient to tolerate their abuse so he can parade them before the public as the pretext to rehabilitate his favourite – Cutajar.
And who will Abela absolve next – Silvio Grixti? Justyne Caruana? Chris Cardona? Or, maybe, Mizzi? After all, none of them have been indicted and nobody should pay a perpetual penalty, according to Abela.
Kevin Cassar is a professor of surgery.