A public call is out to turn Evans Building in Valletta into a hotel. It’s a fine location for a hotel right next to the conference facilities (bereft of bedrooms) at the old knights’ hospital next door. Location doesn’t get more prime than that.
The entity the government is using to administer the concession process is something called “Malta Strategic Partnership Projects Limited”, the rebranded brainchild of the sorely missed Konrad Mizzi.
Here’s where it gets interesting. One of the directors of MSPP is Joe Cuschieri, the President’s son-in-law, disgraced former CEO of the financial services regulator and close associate of disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat. Just a few days ago his former employer published a report that forced his resignation and which had ruled on Joe Cuschieri’s liberties with keeping conflicts of interest declared and apart.
That report disagreed with Joe Cuschieri that there was no possible conflict of interest in accompanying Yorgen Fenech to Las Vegas and advising him. “In any case it is abundantly clear to the Board that Mr. Cuschieri infringed both the above-mentioned Guidelines on Hospitality and the ECB Code of Conduct.”
Why is this relevant?
It’s painful enough that after being forced to resign in disgrace from the MFSA, Joe Cuschieri continues to be deemed by the government as a fit and proper person to be a director of a government company that deals with the privatisation of public properties.
He is now director of the government company that is handling a project that is of direct interest to the hospitality and tourism industry in which his friend Yorgen Fenech and Yorgen Fenech’s family has major interests. The conflict of interest that Joe Cuschieri has is manifest.
It gets worse. Joe Cuschieri is the sole shareholder and director of a company called “World Class Hospitality Management Company Ltd.” Now the conflict is personal. He operates in the trade personally and directly.
The party does not end for these people, does it?