Pierre Fenech, Labour’s ITS CEO, is notorious. He’s the “Pierre ITS” who Rosianne Cutajar resorted to when she wanted a phantom job to pig out like all the rest. He’s the double CEO Pierre Fenech.  He’s CEO for the Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS) and simultaneously CEO for the Mediterranean Conference Centre.  For his two posts “Pierre tal-ITS” earns 122,000 euro. But that’s not enough notoriety for the insatiable Fenech. Now he’s gone one step further.

While ITS was in negotiations with Viking Cruises over staff training, Fenech went on a luxury 5-day Mediterranean cruise paid entirely by Viking cruises. He claimed he was there for “meetings with Viking cruises on possible future collaboration”. So why did he take his wife Romina with him? She’s a Housing Authority official and has absolutely nothing to do with ITS. More to the point why was Romina’s trip also fully funded by Viking Cruises?

Pierre and Romina’s Mediterranean free cruise smells very suspiciously of a gift from a company intending to influence Fenech’s decisions. It’s a freebie.  And Fenech is prima facie guilty of influence peddling.  Fenech should thank his lucky stars he’s in Labour’s Malta.  In any other civilised country he’d already have been arrested, interrogated and prosecuted.

If he were in Texas he’d be facing jail. “A public servant who exercises discretion in connection with contracts, purchases, payments, claims or other pecuniary transactions may not accept a benefit from a person the public servant knows is interested in a transaction”.  Texas’ penal code defines “benefit” as “anything reasonably regarded as pecuniary gain or pecuniary advantage”.  As examples of benefits it lists “a hotel room, a hunting trip, football tickets”.  Surely a 5-day Mediterranean luxury cruise visiting Dubrovnik, Corfu, Naples, Rome and Sicily would be considered a “benefit” by the court.

The New South Wales government Gifts, Benefits and Hospitality policy is crystal clear: “Never accept any offer of a gift, benefit or hospitality if you are working in an area where you have a level of discretion in decision-making, that may be perceived as presenting a conflict of interest, any offer of cash or equivalent including sponsored travel”. If Pierre Fenech were in Sydney he’d be toast by now.  And that’s before the authorities realise he’d also taken his wife on the free jaunt.

Anthony Castaneda, a contracting official from Sacramento, was found guilty of accepting a vacation package at a theme park worth 2,500 dollars while he was in a position to influence the award of a contract.  He didn’t actually influence that contract.  Yet he was sentenced to 5 months of house arrest, two years of probation, ordered to pay back the cost of his vacation and pay an additional 2,000 dollar fine.

But Pierre Fenech gets to keep both his CEO jobs and continue cashing in his 122,000 euro pay cheque. He wasn’t sanctioned by Minister Clayton Bartolo or the Ministry’s permanent secretary Anthony Gatt for such flagrant abuse. In fact, according to Fenech, the permanent secretary himself approved his trip. Did the permanent secretary know Fenech and his wife were going on the all-expenses paid luxury cruise? If he were in Finland “even if your supervisor thinks the benefit is acceptable, you will not be discharged from criminal liability”.

Fenech’s free Mediterranean cruise was only exposed through the Shift’s freedom of information request. Fenech kept it secret. When caught he came up with ludicrous misleading excuses on his FOI declaration.  “No gifts were involved” he deviously claimed. So what do you call a 5-day luxury Mediterranean cruise?  Fenech didn’t even mention his five day cruise in his declaration.

But the Fenechs weren’t alone.  Labour Party’s own President, Ramona Attard  (https://theshiftnews.com/2023/09/29/labour-party-president-joined-its-ceo-on-free-mediterranean-cruise/ ) was on the free luxury cruise too. Fenech invited Attard and her partner Andrew Debattista, a business development manager at ITS, to join them. Attard’s lavish holiday was also funded by Viking Cruises.

When confronted by The Shift, Ramona Attard admitted she’d been on the cruise but claimed “the whole delegation from ITS was invited with spouses/partners”.  Besides, she insisted, she paid her own travel to and from Ancona, from where the cruise departed.  Did she expect the taxpayer to pay that too? That’s what happened with her partner Andrew Debattista and his boss Pierre Fenech. Fenech’s greed is so nauseatingly rabid that he charged the State for his and Debattista’s travel to Ancona to board their free cruise.  The Shift’s FOI revealed Fenech’s piggishness knows no bounds.  We, the taxpayers, paid for his trip to and from Ancona, because Fenech claimed the free cruise with his wife and Ramona Attard was part of his work.

By roping in Ramona Attard, Fenech knows he’s safe. Nobody will touch him, Attard benefitted too. Besides, Labour has normalised such flagrant abuse.  Nobody bats an eyelid about a mere Mediterranean cruise. Didn’t Joseph Muscat accept Yorgen Fenech’s 5800 euro Petrus wines and his expensive Bulgari watch? Didn’t he accept Dubai first class tickets worth 21,000 euro from a secret donor? Wasn’t he paid tens of thousands of euro from a firm linked to Vitals?  Didn’t he receive tens of thousands from Zammit Tabona within 3 months of leaving office? So what’s the fuss about a cruise?

Labour won’t take action against Fenech. It won’t sanction its own president Ramona Attard. Not with Robert Abela as its leader.  Even when faced with the massive disability benefits scandal, Abela covered it up. He let Silvio Grixti resign quietly with no mention of the fraud.  He kept paying him thousands as OPM consultant. Abela never took action to strip Grixti of party membership.  Ramona Attard evaded questions about Grixti’s party membership.  The party deviously announced that Grixti is “no longer a paid-up PL member”. Not because Labour kicked him out but because he simply stopped paying his membership.

Rosianne Cutajar was right.  Labour is a party of piggish gluttons in a mad scramble to grab as much loot as possible in the shortest time.