UPDATED/More about the tangled cobweb of Taghna Lkoll cronyism

UPDATE AT 5PM: Since this post went up, I have been informed that Iosif Galea’s brother, Ian, has also been put on the public payroll – at Sedqa, which falls within Michael Farrugia’s portfolio. Ian and Iosif Galea’s father, Francis, is head of Michael Farrugia’s secretariat.

A Sedqa source says: “He was literally just put on the payroll there with no job to do. He spends the entire day doing nothing other than meeting with his old friends, the ones he used to do drugs with when he was still an addict, and running his personal errands using the office car. No one at Sedqa knows what his role is: so much so that his office is actually not in the Sedqa building but adjacent to it.”

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Today’s briefing: Family and Social Solidarity Minister Michael Farrugia, John Dalli sidekick Iosif Galea, Iosif’s father Francis Galea, and Super One show hostess Svetlana Muscat. Updated: and also Francis Galea’s lesser-known son, Ian.

Michael Farrugia’s chief of staff is Francis Galea, whose son Iosif Galea is very closely linked to John Dalli and Silvio Zammit.

Iosif Galea used to work at the Lotteries & Gaming Authority but lost his job there along with fellow employee and lawyer Gayle Kimberley after the two of them were found to have been embroiled in a secret extra-marital affair together and also in the snus scandal.

When OLAF’s chief investigator Giovanni Kessler turned up in Spain to interview Kimberley about her role in the matter, he found her sharing a hotel room with Iosif Galea. Silvio Zammit used to take Iosif Galea a hot lunch at his Lotteries & Gaming Authority office almost every day, and the two travelled with John Dalli and were photographed in Italy together.

When Michael Farrugia was parliamentary secretary responsible for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, Iosif – his chief of staff’s son – was put on the payroll there as an enforcement officer. He has since left and now claims to be consulting privately for gaming businesses.

Update: Francis Galea has also arranged to have his other son put on the public payroll, at the social services agency Sedqa, which falls within his minister’s portfolio. Apparently, Ian Galea has a full salary there, but no actual job to do.

For the last two years or so, Iosif Galea has been seeing Super One show hostess Svetlana Muscat, his marriage having broken up over that whole other thing. Both of them have children from their previous relationships.

Iosif’s father Francis has very cosily arranged to have his son’s Super One girlfriend put on the public payroll as ASSISTANT communications coordinator to Michael Farrugia, in the private secretariat where he is chief of staff. The main communications coordinator is Claudia Cuschieri, who lives with Labour Party activist Andy Ellul, a policeman turned criminal lawyer.

Cuschieri got her job there in a similar way. She and her boyfriend Andy Ellul are part of a tightly knit friendship circle that includes Michael Farrugia and his girlfriend Amanda Mifsud, Robert Musumeci and his girlfriend Magistrate Consuelo Herrera, Manuel Mallia and his new wife and Maltese citizen Codruta Cristian, and to which Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and his second wife Carmen Cianter were pivotal before she walked out.

Does Minister Michael Farrugia approve of having his chief of staff’s son’s girlfriend given a key job in his secretariat? Of course he does. They’re very cosy.

The minister himself has no scruples about this kind of thing. As soon as he got into government two years ago, his girlfriend Amanda Mifsud was immediately given a job at Malta Freeport and when the government set up its agency for controlling ID cards and selling passports – Identity Malta – Mifsud was made an executive there. She is supremely qualified for the job, of course.

The cast of characters is below.

Michael Farrugia and Amanda Mifsud at dinner with Robert Musumeci and Consuelo Herrera

Michael Farrugia and Amanda Mifsud celebrating the Labour victory in March 2013: the race to the trough begins

Michael Farrugia celebrating the Labour victory at Medasia in Gzira with Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando giving a testimonial, during the last general election, for Michael Farrugia

Michael Farrugia’s girlfriend, Amanda Mifsud, and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s estranged second wife Carmen Ciantar, who has since started proceedings to have their marriage, contracted less than three years ago, declared null. She walked out on him just a year after they married, when she found he was cheating on her already with somebody he had put on the payroll of the state council he chairs: Labour Party campaign ‘star’ Lara Boffa

Ian Galea, Iosif’s brother – their father Francis Galea, Michael Farrugia’s head of secretariat, had him put on the public payroll at the social services agency Sedqa where apparently he has nothing to do and does nothing.

Iosif Galea (left) on holiday in Italy with then European Commissioner John Dalli and his henchman Silvio Zammit. Zammit, who owns a food kiosk, used to take Galea a hot lunch at his Lotteries and Gaming Authority office every day. This picture was taken round about the time the snus scandal was brewing. At that point, Iosif Galea was involved in a secret extra-marital affair with snus-scandal lawyer Gayle Kimberley. Their cover was blown by the OLAF investigation.

Iosif Galea with his Super One girlfriend Svetlana Muscat and Labour mayor of Zurrieq Natius Farrugia, who has a criminal conviction for harassment and who for many years was involved in a relationship with longtime Labour MP and surgeon Anthony Zammit, who has since been involved in a notorious trial after he was tied up at home by ‘robbers’.

Iosif Galea with his father, who is MIchael Farrugia’s chief of staff, and with his girlfriend, who is Michael Farrugia’s assistant communications coordinator. The other woman is his mother.

Snus lawyer Gayle Kimberley, who was employed at the Lotteries & Gaming Authority with Iosif Galea and having a secret affair with him. They were both married to somebody else at the time, with children.

Iosif Galea and his Super One girlfriend Svetlana, who his father has put on the public payroll.