The National Audit Office (NAO) has issued a damning report about Rosianne Cutajar's former employment as a consultant by the Institute of Tourism Studies, stating that there were "concerns of negligence in the disbursement of public funds by all involved in this contrived engagement."

The report used the words 'irregular' and 'fraudulent' with reference to the nature of this employment. The report also highlights the NAO's concern that the contract had been backdated.

Cutajar got the consultancy on 2 May 2019 and she resigned from her post as consultant on 13 January 2020, the NAO report shows.

The NAO said that on 28 March 2023, the Alternattiva Demokratika Partit Demokratiku (ADPD) Chair at the time, Carmel Cacopardo, had requested the National Audit Office (NAO) to investigate whether the contract of employment entered into by the Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS) with PL MP Rosianne Cutajar constituted a misuse of public funds.

Her consultancy role had come to light following Whatsapp chats that were published by Mark Camilleri between Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech that took place between June and September 2019, in which she had mentioned it.

The contract between the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ITS and Cutajar was dated 2 May 2019, the NAO statement accompanying its report read. "Duties included providing strategic and operational support, establishing performance standards and indicators, acting as a representative of the Institute and facilitating stakeholder management, the drafting and reviewing of financial documents, and enforcing adherence to legal guidelines and internal policies."

Despite the enquiries and review of key documents by the NAO, the need for this engagement could not be traced to any source, the statement read. "This need was not referred to in any strategic report of the Ministry for Tourism or the ITS, was not brought to the attention of the ITS Board of Governors, despite the obligation at law for its involvement in such matters, and was not included in the ITS human resources plan referred to the Board a few weeks after the Consultant was engaged," the NAO said.

"The review of all Board minutes revealed that the Consultant's existence and activity remained obscure to the Board throughout the period of employment. The CEO of ITS maintained that the need to engage a consultant, the functions and duties to be assigned, and remuneration payable were discussed with the Institute's Executive Management Office; however, no documentation substantiating that claimed was provided," the  statement continued.

The NAO said that it established that the employment of the consultant breached regulations governing recruitment, be it in terms of ordinary public sector employment or individuals engaged on a trust basis. "The dissonant perspectives of the CEO of ITS and the Chief of Staff to the Minister for Tourism instil doubt as to the veracity of their assertions. The CEO ITS contended that after 'consulting with the Ministry', Ms Cutajar was deemed the idoneous candidate. On the other hand, the Chief of Staff claimed that the input of the Minister's Secretariat did not extend 'beyond a mere notification of the vacancy to a candidate, or a potential candidate to the employer.'"

"Compounding matters was the vacuous recollection of the Minister for Tourism. Regardless, the ITS, as employer, was ultimately responsible for the failures in authorisation, substantiation and reporting that arose from its bypassing of all regulations that ought to have ensured proper oversight and governance of employment through public funds," the NAO said in its statement accompanying the report.

"Several sources of evidence indicated that the contract of employment was backdated," the NAO said. "The draft contracts exchanged between the CEO ITS and the Chief of Staff to the Minister for Tourism post-employment as well as the significant arrears paid in the consultant's first salary lend credence to this understanding. Although the CEO ITS and the consultant sought to explain these anomalies, the convergence of the multiple sources of evidence amplifies the NAO's concerns that the contract was backdated by at least one month and therefore irregular," the statement read.

The NAO's full report went a step further, and said: "the NAO's concerns regarding the backdating of the latter's contract of employment persist, rendering entry into the contract of employment at least a month prior to the actual engagement fraudulent. The date cited in the contract was known to be incorrect and misrepresentative by the parties to the contract, evidenced no less by correspondence, salary-related documentation and chats with a third party as detailed. The financial beneficiary of this irregularity was Hon. Cutajar; however, the deceit was abetted through the actions of the CEO ITS when agreeing to the disbursement of public funds he was responsible for administering."

The NAO' statement accompanying the report said that although Ms Cutajar's professional and political experience "aligned with certain tasks assigned, of concern was that the responsibility to draft and review financial documents and to ensure the ITS's adherence to legal and ethical requirements remained aspects of work for which she had no expertise."

The full report itself reads that "based on the submissions by the ITS and Hon. Cutajar, the evidence of work carried out by the Consultant over a period of approximately eight months consisted of screenshots of the calendar event of two meetings organised by the CEO ITS, the referral of the Institute's organisational chart by the COO Corporate Services, and journal entries corresponding to four meetings with the COO Academia. While the NAO concedes that certain duties and functions may not necessarily result in documentation, generally, knowledge-based work generates ample evidence of activity, be it in the form of correspondence, reports being drawn or reviewed, and records of events and meetings attended. In the case of the Consultant, the dearth of evidence casts doubt on what work was carried out. When seen in the context of earlier points raised by this Office regarding the irregularity and fraudulent nature of this employment, the poor output, if any, of the Consultant aggravates concerns of negligence in the disbursement of public funds by all involved in this contrived engagement."

The NAO's statement said that Cutajar resigned from her post as Consultant on 13 January 2020, when appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Equality and Reforms. "During her engagement, Ms Cutajar earned a gross income of €19,195. Aside from her engagement with the ITS, in 2019, Ms Cutajar earned income of €43,777 from her role as Commissioner for Simplification and Reduction of Bureaucracy and €26,165 as a Member of Parliament. Aggregated with the €18,190 earned in 2019 as Consultant, the gross earnings amounted to €88,132. This income exceeded the €74,000 declared to Parliament by Ms Cutajar by €14,132."

This report by the NAO comes after a the Standards Commissioner recently said that he was unable to investigate a complaint about Cutajar over the ITS position,  because the case was time-barred.