That man is at it again. He is back in the news doing what seems is the only thing he can do.
That man is Joseph Cuschieri, son-in-law of former President George Vella.
All through his relatively young age he has been getting in trouble, the same trouble, over and over again, getting sacked again and again, starting again in a new role but then found to be doing the same thing.
Sacked and sacked again, like the proverbial cork, he floats up to the surface, finds a new niche and starts again.
I remember quite clearly a specific date. That was the 25th November 2020 and on that day his father-in-law attended two Masses.
First there was the quasi State funeral at St John’s for Oliver Friggieri. Then in the evening the presidential couple attended Solemn Mass at the Zejtun parish church, it being the liturgical feast (rather than the feast which is now celebrated in the third week of June) of St Catherine.
But even two Masses could not save Joseph Cuschieri, husband of the daughter of the President.
He had been found to have enjoyed a trip to Las Vegas, together with colleague Edwina Licari, given to them by Yorgen Fenech who is even now being accused as the possible mastermind behind the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
For the MFSA board it was unacceptable for Cuschieri to accept a trip from a person, Fenech, that Cuschieri was supposed to oversee and monitor. He had to go.
There were other instances in Cuschieri’s chequered career where the same traits could be seen. Such as the time when he headed the Gaming Authority.
Before that, at the dawn of his career he ended up exiled for six months from Malta. He had moved from a regulatory post overseeing Malta’s telecoms to one of the companies he had been regulating, without observing a breathing space.
The company he joined, Vodafone, turned out to be more ethical than he and sent him to Egypt for six months to enforce a minimal breathing space
He could have learned from any of these mishaps. I am sure that his father-in-law never approved these shenanigans for his term as a president was not tainted by allegations of corruption, which cannot be said of some of his predecessors, from either side of the House.
Now, according to a report on The Shift News, he is back at his preferred game. Years ago he had given a job to Miriam Dalli when she was just a reporter with Super One.
She never forgot him and at the beginning of this year appointed him to head the new agency which says it wants to embellish Malta, Project Green.
I cannot remember one project done by Project Green to bring some respite to this parched land.
Oh, and Minister Dalli never forgot to be thankful and had a job waiting for Mr Cuschieri’s daughter as soon as she finished university.
Personally, Joseph Cuschieri is an affable and even endearing, well dressed person. But he and his ilk are the best that Labour can offer – an extended network of friends of friends, appointed for their political connections, appointed many times beyond their level of competence.
It is revealing that there is a connection with that symbol of profligacy that is the film commission.
There is nothing socialist in all this. This is the only sustainable project of the two Labour administrations. No wonder the Labour rank and file spat it back.
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