Cassola requests Standards czar probe into Ian Borg over €62,400 direct order to adviser’s daughter

Arnold Cassola has requested an investigation by the Standards Commissioner into the award of a €62,400 direct order to the daughter of one of Ian Borg’s advisers.

The request was submitted on Monday after the Times of

Malta reported that Adreana Zammit was awarded a €62,400 contract by Borg’s ministry to serve as a junior lawyer – three months before she had even received her warrant.

Adreana Zammit is the daughter of Jesmond Zammit, one of Borg’s top advisers.

“[Ian Borg] needs to be investigated over three things: fraud, by employing someone as a lawyer while she was only a student; nepotism and favouritism, because she is the daughter of someone politically and professionally close to him; reasons for issuing a direct order,” Arnold Cassola said in his letter.

Apart from the initial contract, Zammit was awarded an additional €46,142 direct order in August 2020 for a six-month legal consultation agreement – meaning that she earned at least €108,542 in direct orders for her legal services.

The ministry told the Times of Malta that Zammit was first engaged with Transport Malta in a legal placements between July 2018 and September 2019 before then being offered a contract as a junior lawyer, and then as a legal consultant until May 2023.

It’s the latest in a number of direct order controversies: just last month Prime Minister Robert Abela ordered a €15,000 contract handed to former footballer Daniel Bogdanovic by the Education Ministry to be rescinded.