Muscat has been hijacked and cannot sack Bartolo, Opposition MP alleges

Opposition MP George Pullicino called on education minister Evarist Bartolo to shoulder political responsibility for alleged corruption at the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools involving the minister’s former canvasser Edward Caruana.

In his parliamentary adjounrment, Pullicino claimed that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has been “hijacked” and that he no longer has the authority to sack ministers after failing to fire Konrad Mizzi in the wake of the Panama Papers.

“We are appraoching a situation whereby ministers can carry on doing whatever they want,” he said.

Pullicino said that Bartolo is too slow to respond to problems and that “deadlines mean nothing to him”.

He noted that Caruana, the brother of the education ministry’s permanent secretary Joseph Caruana, was handpicked as the person of trust at the head of summer projects in the maintenance division of the EU.

He questioned how nobody had noticed how Caruana had built an extensive property in Rabat and hand-delivered nearly €9 million worth of cheques to contractors and suppliers at the time he is alleged to have taken commissions.

Pullicino also questioned why Bartolo had transferred Caruana to another division, instead of outright suspending him, when former FTS chief executive Philip Rizzo had first warned him of corruption allegations in April.

Rizzo had resigned from the role after alleging corruption in the granting of direct orders for the renovation of state schools.

In his speech, Pullicino quoted an email in which Rizzo had warned Bartolo that transferring Edward Caruana to another division with the same financial package “was worse than doing nothing at all”.