Rosianne Cutajar resigns, finally
Rosianne Cutajar has finally done the honourable thing and resigned.
The parliamentary secretary for reforms had been under pressure for weeks, after it had been reported that she had allegedly pocketed thousands of euros from a failed property deal involving Yorgen Fenech, who is accused of being a mastermind behind the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Together with Charles Farrugia known as itTikka, she had helped broker a €3.1 million property deal. Fenech had been trying to buy a property in Mdina, but the deal fell through after Fenech was arrested and arraigned in November 2019. It was reported that the owner of the property, Joe Camilleri, is chasing Cutajar for her to return a €46,000 brokerage fee that had already been paid to her. She insists that she was never in business with Fenech, and that she had cut all contact with him the moment he had been arrested.
The matter is now being investigated by the Standards Commissioner, George Hyzler, who is still to issue a report. But calls for Cutajar’s resignation, pending the outcome of the report, had repeatedly been made. Until Thursday, Cutajar was resisting them and also had the backing of Prime Minister Robert Abela who, when asked, always said that he will not make a decision until the commissioner’s report is concluded.
Asked earlier this week by The Malta Independent, Cutajar again said that she will only speak about the matter with the Standards Commissioner, holding firmly to her position as parliamentary secretary. But the pressure grew and, only last Wednesday, a protest was organised to call for her resignation.
Finally, on Thursday, she announced that she was stepping aside, saying she was doing so to allow the government to work in serenity. “I am not going to let any false and malicious allegations detract from the reforms which we have been working so hard on and which we will continue to carry out for the good of the Maltese and Gozitan people,” she wrote when announcing her resignation, which was accepted by Abela.
As parliamentary secretary for reforms, Cutajar had been deeply involved in controversial issues such as plans for a change to the laws governing prostitution and the recreational use of cannabis, which often came to her rescue in an attempt to deflect attention away from her personal predicament.
The resignation, apart from being a blow to Cutajar’s own career, is also an upset to Abela. He should have read the signs long before Thursday. Cutajar’s alleged links to Fenech have been in the public domain for months, and it was immediately clear that they would not have gone away. Abela should have been tougher with Cutajar and should have asked her to quit as soon as the news emerged. His hesitation exposed him as being too indecisive and also appeared that he was protecting the parliamentary secretary in a situation that was causing a lot of damage to the government’s reputation.
Now that, finally, it was decided that the best way forward was for Cutajar to move out of the picture, we await the conclusions of the Standard Commissioner’s report, which will put a definitive seal on the issue.