€170,000 from gaming regulator donated to charity run by Muscat

PQ shows €170,000 were gifted in donations to the Marigold Foundation between 2015 and 2019

13 June 2023, 5:25pm

1 min read

Michelle Muscat with former BOV chairman John Cassar White, during the launch of The Marigold Foundation

Malta’s gaming regulator donated a total of €170,000 to the Marigold Foundation, a charity founded by Bank of Valletta and controlled by Michelle Muscat, the wife of former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

The amount was donated between 2015 and 2019, starting from €20,000, then €20,000 in 2016, €40,000 in 2017 and again in 2018, and €50,000 in 2019.

Marigold Foundation was in 2020 revealed to have had received over €200,000 in donations from state regulators, in total.

For example, the Malta Financial Services Authority donated €26,000 and €25,000 in 2019 and 2020.

Michelle Muscat presided over one of the most formidable fund-raising as well as generous charities of the past years. With a €200,000 capital endowment by the partly government-owned Bank of Valletta, Michelle Muscat’s role as spouse of the prime minister was invested as chair of the Marigold Foundation, a charity that became the prime vehicle of Muscat’s personage, but also a pioneer of less popular causes such as rare diseases.

Since then, Muscat’s charity events and her annual swimming challenge raised over €2.3 million, with a massive surplus. For all intents and purposes a charity ‘owned’ by the bank, the foundation’s equity has always enjoyed a steady rise. In total, the charity now has over €776,000 in cash equivalents.

Muscat has been installed as a co-founder of the Marigold Foundation through a nominal €100 endowment, which gives her the authority to appoint persons of her choice to the board of the Foundation.