Updated | IAID investigation on allegations against ITS director Henry Mifsud

The director of the Institute for Tourism Studies has suspended himself pending an investigation by the IAID.

Mifsud was alleged to have hosted private parties using resources that were the property of the Institute for Tourism Studies.

The Malta Independent reported that after the allegations surfaced, Mifsud retaliated by harassing lecturers and chefs with car-searches and forcing them to sign declarations.

This week allegations surfaced that he had been made to resign from his post of organising functions tied to a bank he worked for after he was found out by the bank to have collected bottles of spirits of a party financed by the bank but kept the bottles in his possession.

The tourism ministry said it had already taken all the necessary measures in connection with the allegations against ITS executive director Henry Mifsud.

The ministry said that its permanent secretary had communicated on 18 March with the Internal Audit and Investigations Department (IAID) and an investigation had started.

“While Mr Mifsud denies these allegations, he has suspended himself from his posting so that this investigation can be a transparent one. The suspension was immediately accepted by the minister,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ITS board of governor has taken a decision to appoint Pierre Fenech as interim director, to ensure the regular operation of the school. Fenech is executive director of the Mediterranean Conference Centre and has spent 17 years in the hospital industry and private sector management.

At a press conference outside the ITS, Nationalist MP Antoine Borg said the PN believed in the importance of the tourism sector for the country and that the training of students and lifelong education of current workers in the industry should be at the centre of the government's concerns.

Borg referred to the cases of mismanagement that had come to the media's attention in the past days. "Following the government's statement of Henry Mifsud being suspended in the past minutes, we hope the investigation will yield the right results and bring about the appropriate decisions.

"We believe that the suspension should have occured much earlier than it has, but we hope that this unacceptable situation will be properly rectified especially in view of the fact that students wishing to enroll in the school next october, do not have any programme of studies to refer to."

Borg urged the government to look to the situation as fast as possible and ensure that the torism industry does not suffer unnecessarily following the reports made in the past few months.