Parliament’s ethics committee will meet again on Thursday morning to resume the debate on the standards commissioner’s report on Rosianne Cutajar.
The committee last met on 12 July, with the Speaker walking out of a rowdy meeting after government and PN MPs disagreed on who should be summoned to testify.
For over two weeks, efforts to find a date that was suitable for all five members – two MPs from each side and Speaker Anglu Farrugia, who chairs the committee – proved futile. However, the committee members have finally agreed on a date. The meeting is scheduled for Thursday at 8:30am.
No witnesses will appear before the committee tomorrow, and the meeting will be a continuation of the debate that was cut short during the last meeting, this newsroom understands.
Cutajar and her associate, Charles Farrugia ‘it-Tikka’ allegedly received €46,000 each from the seller of the Mdina property for their part in brokering the deal. Farrugia allegedly also received €31,000 from the prospective buyer – 17 Black owner Yorgen Fenech – while the latter is also said to have gifted €9,000 to Cutajar.
The agreement fell through when Fenech was arrested and charged with masterminding the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
The would-be seller, Joseph Camilleri, is demanding that Cutajar and her associate, Charles Farrugia ‘it-Tikka’ refund the brokerage fee they had been paid and has initiated court proceedings in this regard.
In an apparent attempt to take the fall for Cutajar, Farrugia has now claimed that he pocketed the entire amount – some €120,000 – and has revised his tax return.
The 12 July standars committee meeting ended without agreement over who the committee should summon next, with the Opposition saying it wanted to summon Charles Farrugia and the government MPs saying they wanted to bring in tax commissioner Marvin Gaerty.
The Opposition MPs agreed to summon Gaerty but insisted that Farrugia should also be brought to testify.
During the last meeting, the government MPs and the Speaker voted against a motion by the PN to adopt Hyzler’s report and sanction Cutajar, insisting that the matter should be investigated further.