The Nationalist Party has demanded an “independent investigation” into what it described as the “auditing failures” at MCAST after one of its own politicians was charged with defrauding the school of €2.3 million.

Francine Farrugia, who worked as a finance manager at MCAST and who was a Nationalist Party local councillor and one-time general election candidate, was on Thursday charged with misappropriating €2.3 million from the school.

A court heard how Farrugia, who had access to the school’s payroll, entered salaries twice across a two year period before police eventually caught on. Farrugia has since been suspended from her job and has resigned from all of her positions within the PN, including as a local councillor in Siggiewi. Farrugia has denied the charges that were filed against her.

The PN noted in a statement on Friday afternoon that MCAST had failed to detect the abuse, and therefore called for an independent investigation to establish first and foremost how this was possible, and how after all this time there was no mechanism in place to alert the College to what was happening.

The PN said that the investigation should also answer on whether there were similar cases and whether there were other shortcomings in the management of MCAST funds which are, at the end of the day, public funds.

“The Government has an obligation to ensure that abuse is tackled and that systems are in place to prevent it from happening,” the PN said.

“This is even more pressing given that the Auditor General has, since at least 2019, been warning that there are shortcomings in the financial management of MCAST,” the party said.

The PN once again condemned any abuse of public funds, regardless of “whoever commits it.”

The statement was signed by PN MPs Graham Bencini and Justin Schembri, the party’s Shadow Minister for Finance and Shadow Minister for Education and Trades respectively.