Philip Rizzo to step down as ETC chief executive officer

Philip Rizzo has asked to be relieved of his duties as the Chief Executive Officer of the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC).

The Corporation said that since 2014, Rizzo had helped introduce important employment policies, chief among them are those aimed at helping people with disabilities into work. The ETC thanked Rizzo for his work.

Philip Rizzo, a veteran auditor and disability rights campaigner, had come forward as a whistleblower behind the disclosures that showed the head of the OPM's sensitive Internal Audit and Investigations Departments, was conducting undeclared private business from her government office.

MaltaToday published full details of the business deal in which Rita Schembri was acting as a business advisor on a three-year plan to buy out one of the partners in the Casinò di Venezia, in Birgu.

The correspondence revealed a link between Schembri and lawyer Pio Valletta, a non-executive director of Gap Developments plc, the developers of the Fort Cambridge complex in Tigné owned by George Muscat and tuna-ranching magnate Charles Azzopardi.

During his time as CEO, Rizzo had to make a public apology for a lewd Facebook comment on one of his subordinate’s Facebook photos. The outrage led to a ministerial direction barring all senior ETC employees from having access to Facebook.